


Hell or High Water

by electricskeptic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angels, Case Fic, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-12
Updated: 2011-04-12
Packaged: 2017-10-19 23:06:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/206206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electricskeptic/pseuds/electricskeptic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Dean and Sam are killed by forces unknown (again), and Castiel is willing to do just about anything do bring them back. However, things aren’t quite as straightforward as they seem, and the civil war in Heaven reaches an unexpected climax when Raphael shows his hand. A story about faith, morality, and the ultimate cost of free will.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://ladyyueh.livejournal.com/profile)[**ladyyueh**](http://ladyyueh.livejournal.com/) as part of [](http://deancastiel.livejournal.com/profile)[**deancastiel**](http://deancastiel.livejournal.com/)’s [Everlasting Birthday Challenge](http://community.livejournal.com/deancastiel/2807529.html) for the prompt: _“Dean and Sam die but they’re nowhere to be found in Heaven/Earth/Hell. Cue BAMF Cas on quest to find them.”_

Castiel knew the angel in front of him.

His name was Baradiel, and they had fought together in the First War.

Now, Baradiel was tethered to a makeshift rack -- a pool table of all things, wouldn’t Dean be proud? -- locked in his vessel with Enochian warding magic, Castiel’s sword speared through his shoulder. Blood and saliva foamed at his lips, a red froth that dripped down onto his suit lapels as he shook his head and laughed without humor and refused to answer Castiel’s questions.

Castiel was running out of patience.

“You know,” Balthazar drawled from where he was leaning against the bar, “I remember when _you_ were the one being tortured, Cas. Up in Heaven rather than some scuzzy dive bar, granted, but Zachariah just kept on tearing into you. I begged him to stop, by the way; at least, I did until he told me to ‘hold my blaspheming tongue unless I wanted to be next’.” He shrugged. “Then you were on your own.”

He ran a finger idly over the rim of his Scotch glass. Castiel glanced at him, struggling to keep his irritation in check.

“What’s your point?”

Balthazar shrugged, sipped his drink. “Just making conversation.”

His tone was nonchalant, but Castiel knew his brother, and he could tell that Balthazar was uneasy. Castiel had tracked him to this bar to demand once again that he hand over the weapons he’d stolen when they had both become aware of another angelic presence, Baradiel spying on them. A short scuffle had ensued, over the course of which all humans had fled the establishment, but Castiel and Balthazar together had quickly overpowered Raphael’s agent.

Castiel wrapped a hand around the hilt of his sword and pulled it free from Baradiel’s shoulder, feeling it scrape against the bone but encountering little resistance as the metal slid through gristle and sinew. The damage to the vessel was inconsequential; even a non-lethal wound, when inflicted with angelic weaponry, was enough to tear through Grace, and it was this that made it such an effective method of torture.

Castiel positioned the flat of the blade against the cheekbone of Baradiel’s vessel, just below the eye socket. The man looked to be in his early twenties, barely older than a child, with fair hair that reminded Castiel of Adam Milligan. Castiel did not wonder about the vessel’s family, about whether he was still present and conscious somewhere, a prisoner inside his own body. He did not have the luxury of pondering such things.

“What is Raphael planning?”

Baradiel spat in Castiel’s face, reddish liquid spraying his nose and chin. Castiel resisted the urge to wipe it away.

“You can torture me for all eternity; I won’t break the way that you did. I’m not weak like you. I would never betray my own kind.”

Castiel flicked his wrist upwards in a lightning-quick maneuver, the soft flesh around the eye orbital giving easily beneath the point of his sword as it drove in, the edge of the blade skirting behind the eye to sever the optic nerve before he drew it back. Baradiel’s scream came out as a gurgling rasp, bloody liquid slopping from his lips as the eyeball hit the floor with a dull plop, rolling away under a nearby table. Light began to leak from the empty socket as well as more blood and fluid; bright white and holy.

“Really, Cas?” Balthazar sighed exasperatedly. He sounded vaguely nauseous, if an angel could be such a thing.

“No-one’s asking you to be here,” Castiel snapped. Balthazar did not leave.

“Look at you, Castiel,” Baradiel wheezed. “No angel would resort to such barbarous methods. You’re no better than a demon.”

“I don’t want it to be this way. Please, brother, just --”

“We are not brothers. You Fell, for love of a human man, no less. You’ve fallen prey to sin, to envy and avarice and lust --”

“Now that’s almost certainly not true,” Balthazar interjected. “Cas here’s a prime example of Grade-A virgin if ever I’ve seen one.”

“Tell me,” Baradiel sneered, ignoring him entirely, “what would your Righteous Man say if he could see you now?”

It was a question Castiel had been trying to avoid: what would Dean think if he could see him now? Dean, who had spent a decade flaying souls in Hell but loved with a fierceness Castiel had never known before meeting him; who still believed Castiel to be the better of the two of them.

He had said as much one night during the Apocalypse, when they’d been working their way through a bottle of Bobby’s whisky, Dean running out of reasons to live and Castiel something more human than angel. Dean had slung an arm around his shoulder, slurring his words but speaking with a clarity he rarely possessed while sober, all traces of sarcasm and deflection removed.

“I don’t know if this is just the drink talking,” he’d said, “and you can’t tell Sam I said this or I’d never hear the end of it, but… don’t take your cues for being human from me. ‘Cause I’m kind of a fuck-up, and you’re… well, you’re _good_ , Cas, real good, all pure and holy and shit. You’re better’n I deserve.”

Castiel wondered if Dean still thought that now, after the things he’d seen Castiel do these past few months, but it was ultimately irrelevant. Castiel was doing what needed to be done, though Dean -- obstinate as he was -- refused to see it that way. In some ways, the fact that their friendship was no longer what it used to be was a force for the better. Castiel’s feelings for the man were a weakness he could not afford.

And he was not like Zachariah, not like Alastair; his aim was not to break souls for the sake of remolding them into something new, and he did not take pleasure from the suffering he inflicted. If Baradiel had chosen to follow Raphael of his own free will, then that was his prerogative; Castiel was merely seeking to acquire information, in the most effective way he knew how.

“You really think you can win this war?” Baradiel demanded. His eye was beginning to grow back, a pinkish cyst forming in the gaping cavity, and he was smirking in spite of everything. “You’re nothing. You’re just a lowly foot soldier with ideas above his station, and Raphael will crush you. And when Michael and Lucifer are finished with those Winchesters you’re so fond of, their souls will be the first ones tossed back into damnation, where they and all their kind truly belong.”

Castiel reacted violently; almost before he was aware of moving, his sword was buried hilt-deep in Baradiel’s throat, and celestial light was flooding the room as his brother’s Grace burned itself out, ashen wings cutting through the thick sediment of dust to leave their imprint on the wooden slats.

The silence when Baradiel stopped screaming seemed too loud, though it was punctuated by Castiel’s breathing, harsh and ragged in a way that it shouldn’t be. He wiped the gore away from his face, and some detached part of him noted that his hand was shaking.

“Touchy,” Balthazar muttered.

Castiel could not look at him, and found he had no reply.


	2. Chapter 2

“You two idjits in there?!”

Bobby pounded on the door of room 4B, trying to ignore the voice at the back of his mind telling him something was terribly wrong. Dean had called him only a few hours earlier, asking him to come up and help with their latest case, and though Bobby had grumbled and bitched about Winchesters making unreasonable demands on his time, he was secretly glad for the excuse to get out of the house and see some action. It was hard to forget, sometimes, the year he’d spent with his thumbs up his ass in that damn metal chair.

Only now he found himself wishing that he’d set off a little earlier, driven a little faster, that he hadn’t stopped off in that diner on the Nebraska state line for a cheeseburger and some lukewarm coffee. It was late, late enough that the boys might be in bed -- but they were light sleepers, had to be in their line of work, and not likely to miss Bobby knocking on the door fit to break it down for three solid minutes, cursing up a blue streak.

“If one of you doesn’t open this damn door in the next five seconds, I’m kicking the thing down!” He warned. At this point, he should be hearing movement inside, some snappy comment from Dean about how clearly not everything improved with age before the door opened.

There was nothing.

He didn’t bother to count the five seconds.

It probably would have been more satisfying to make good on his threat and put his foot straight through the cheap plywood, but he didn’t want to attract any undue attention and instead opted to pick the lock.

When the door swing inwards, he was struck by the notion that there wasn’t enough air in the room, his lungs drawing up tight as though somebody had fitted an iron band around them. He didn’t know what he’d expected to find, but it sure as hell hadn’t been this. Rufus had always told him when he’d first been starting out to be prepared for any situation, no matter what -- but there was no way he could ever have prepared himself for the sight that greeted him now.

As far as grisly crime scenes went, he’d seen worse. There wasn’t even that much blood, save for the arterial spray decorating the floor and ceiling. But this was personal, and it had him fighting not to lose his lunch all over the ugly motel carpet, tears stinging his eyes that would have been downright embarrassing at any other time.

Sam and Dean were dead, unmistakably, throats slashed so deeply that the wounds left behind gaped wide, the fresh blood still oozing out suggesting it hadn’t been done all that long ago. The fact that they were each in their beds, eyes closed, that there was no evidence of a fight, suggested they’d simply been put down in their sleep, and that made the whole thing ten times more sickening.

Bobby felt panic grip him, then anger, fear, grief, each emotion chasing the last until he could barely distinguish between them. His legs threatened to give out and he didn’t fight it, kneeling beside the nearest bed (Sam’s), stubbornly looking anywhere but at the bodies. Both Sam and Dean had died before, of course, more times than he cared to think about, and none of them had any illusions that they were going to live long, prosperous lives -- but it wasn’t supposed to go down like this. Not with everything that had happened, everything that was still waiting to happen, just over the horizon. The boys practically had a damn guardian angel, and they still couldn’t --

Bobby sat back in realization, the train of thought grinding to a halt as he remembered coming to in a cemetery in Lawrence when Lucifer had snapped his neck like a dry twig only moments before, Castiel crouching over him with that unnervingly calm expression.

He’d never quite seen what Dean had found so damn likeable about Castiel; the angel was brusque and impatient and a manipulative son of a bitch to boot, but any idiot could see that he had a soft spot for the Winchesters -- one of them in particular -- a mile wide. If he had brought Bobby back to life then surely, _surely_ , he would do the same for them.

The thought was one thing -- and Bobby felt a damn sight better for it, already finding that he was able to breathe a little easier with a plan of some kind in mind -- but actually getting hold of the angel would prove to be another matter entirely. He knew for a fact that Castiel didn’t still have his cell phone; maybe God forgot to put it back together along with the rest of him after he was blown up that second time, who knew? That left prayer, which wasn’t exactly Bobby’s forte, and as Dean told it there was only about a fifty-fifty chance Castiel would bother to answer. Nonetheless, he had to try.

At least, he thought ironically, he was already kneeling.

“Castiel,” he growled, and his voice came out hoarse and broken. He passed one hand shakily over his face and realized that his cheeks were wet. Clearing his throat, he tried again. “I don’t know what you’re doing up there, but you’d better get down here right the hell now. D’you hear me? Get your ass here, or so help me, I’ll roast you in holy fire myself --”

An echo of wingbeats, a gust of displaced air, and Castiel stood between the two beds, as out-of-place and off-center as ever, tiny scowl of irritation on an otherwise impassive face. There was blood on his coat, Bobby noted absently, and his hair stuck up in all directions, like he’d just been running -- or fighting.

“What do you want,” the angel asked, in his weird, flat inflection that made it sound like a statement rather than a question. “It’s unusual for you to --”

He stopped abruptly as his brain seemed to catch up to his mouth and he realized the carnage he’d just walked into. His gaze flickered for a moment between the two bodies; Sam to Dean and then back again before settling fully on Dean, and for a moment Bobby glimpsed something like crushing grief in his eyes before the shutters came back down again. Castiel took a step closer to Dean’s bed, brushed his hand lightly through the man’s hair, touched his cheek in a way that was almost reverent. Bobby looked away, feeling as though he was intruding on some kind of private moment and annoyed that Castiel had the power to make him feel that way. He’d long since given up trying to figure out the convoluted relationship between those two, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that Castiel was hung up on Dean in a bad way. Even if Dean was apparently too blind to see it.

“These cuts were made by angelic weaponry,” Castiel told him, examining Dean’s slashed throat. His voice was worryingly devoid of emotion; but then, Bobby had emotion enough for the both of them.

“Should have realized it was one of your lot,” he bit off. Castiel’s head snapped up, and the look he leveled at Bobby would have made lesser men quail.

“I can assure you, whoever did this did not have my permission,” he said icily. And yeah, Bobby knew that, but he didn’t care overly much about sparing Castiel’s feelings right now.

“I’m not interested in playing the blame game just now,” he ground out. “How about you just fix them, and then we can get to finding out who’s got the smoking gun.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Why the hell not? You brought _me_ back.”

“Resurrection is more than just a matter of re-animating dead flesh,” Castiel lectured impatiently, adopting a vaguely condescending tone that Bobby resented. “I would have thought that after your dealings with Sam when he returned from Hell, you would have realized that the soul is the essence of humanity. When I brought you back, I called your soul down from Heaven and reunited it with your body.”

“Okay, so just do that now.”

“I can’t ‘just do that’, because their souls are not in Heaven.”

A beat passed while Bobby attempted to process this.

“How can you know that?”

“I would have felt them pass.”

No matter how frustrating he found Castiel, Bobby wasn’t about to argue with an angel over something like this -- but if Sam and Dean weren’t in Heaven, there weren’t too many other options. He didn’t want to consider the alternative, though, couldn’t think of either of them back in Hell, not when he knew for a fact that Dean still woke up screaming some nights, that the only thing keeping Sam from stark raving insanity was a wall in his head that could come down at any moment.

“They were both granted absolution for their sins and offered eternal life in Heaven,” Castiel said, with the air of one who was thinking aloud. “The only reason they would be in Hell is if something wanted them there.”

“Is there any way you can check?”

If Castiel were anyone else, Bobby suspected he would have rolled his eyes. “I can’t just look into Hell,” he said, “but I can contact someone who can.”

He held Bobby’s gaze, and there was a determined set to his face that Bobby had last seen in Detroit.

“I’m going to need some things.”

+

Before he met Dean Winchester, Castiel had not been accustomed to worrying for others. He did not feel grief because he could not feel love, beyond the vague, abstract term used by angels. Going to battle had not seemed like a hardship, because it was his duty, just as it was the duty of every angel, and when a brother or sister fell at another’s sword, it was an acceptable price to pay for upholding order.

Now… now Castiel _felt_ , so much so that he was in danger of overflowing with it. He knew love in all of its forms: agape for the world at large, his Father’s creation; a kind of brotherly affection for Sam that he had never felt towards any of his own siblings, save for possibly Balthazar or Anna. Those were simple kinds of love; the variety he harbored towards Dean was a great deal more complicated, and he often felt unequipped to understand it, awkward and clumsy in his attempts to navigate the feelings that came attached with it. It was friendship, yes, the kind of bond that came from several years of shared experience, but it was tied up in an undeniably carnal desire that left him wondering on occasion what it would be like to kiss Dean, to make him gasp and sigh and moan like the actors in the pornographic film he had watched. And then there was a needy, covetous element, something proprietary that left him far more protective and possessive than he was comfortable admitting, as though he had the right to claim Dean as his own.

Whatever the exact nature of their relationship, Castiel knew that he tended to place Dean above all others; that there was very little he would not do for the man. It was a weakness, and a dangerous one at that, but he could help it no more than he could help the passage of time, the mechanics of the universe. It was just something that _was_.

All of which explained the panic and grief that had ripped through him when he’d seen Dean -- and to a lesser extent, Sam -- lying cold and lifeless in that motel room, missing the vital spark that Castiel had carried up from Hell. Messy, human emotions they might have been, but he could feel them now; because he felt love, and everything else followed after.

The fact that the damage had been done by angels made the situation all the worse because it meant he became responsible, however indirectly. There were several parties that could have been at fault: either Raphael’s forces, or a rogue agent with grudge against the Winchesters for their role in stopping the Apocalypse. Castiel was quite certain that if he ever found out the name of the one who had wielded the sword, they would receive his wrath. It would be the one death he would feel no guilt over.

But for now he had to focus on the task in hand. He stood in Bobby’s front room, the empty vessels of Dean and Sam hidden away in the panic room; safe, for the time being. There was a large devil’s trap drawn on the floor in front of him, hidden by an old rug; in his hands, he held a small bowl filled with various magical herbs he had collected, human blood provided by Bobby.

The spell was to summon a demon, but adapted for one in particular. In theory, it should bring the current ruler of Hell to them.

“Even if this works,” Bobby started, hope warring with doubt in his voice, “even if the thing tells us whether or not Sam and Dean are in the Pit, why should we believe it? Demons lie.”

“No demon can conceal the truth from me.” Castiel did not mean for his reply to sound prideful, though he expected it came out that way. He was simply stating the truth.

Not wishing to delay any longer, he began the incantation, speaking in the ancient language, Enochian syllables resonating with power as they entered the atmosphere. The words sounded awkward, shaped by a human larynx, a human tongue, but Castiel had always been resourceful and he did the best job he could with the tools at his disposal.

The demon that appeared in response to his summons was a surprise, because Castiel _knew_ her -- far more intimately than he liked to remember. He had tangled his fingers in the dark hair of the unwilling woman whose body she possessed in a fit of wanton desire he now regretted, and the smirk that was already forming on her lips caused what little patience he had to quickly wane.

“Hey, Clarence,” Meg chirped; all swagger, though Castiel noticed with some amusement that she appeared faintly uneasy. Perhaps seeing what he had done to Crowley had served as an adequate reminder that he was no longer… impotent. “Just couldn’t wait to see me again, huh? I gotta say, if this is a booty call there are more polite ways of asking. And I’d prefer it if the old man wasn’t involved,” she added, looking to Bobby with an expression of distaste.

“ _You’re_ the big head honcho downstairs now?” Bobby asked with a note of incredulity. Castiel wondered the same thing. Though he had to grudgingly admit that Meg appeared to possess a degree of intelligence most demons lacked, and he could only assume she was proficient in the art of torture if she had truly studied under Alastair, she was still just a common demon among thousands of others.

“What can I say? You killing Crowley created a huge power vacuum -- I took advantage. Thanks for that, by the way. I should really send you some flowers some time. So, let me guess: you summoned me here because Dumb and Dumber went and got themselves killed again. And since I’m now effectively Hell’s CEO, you want me to tell you whether or not they bought themselves one way tickets back down to the furnace. I miss anything?”

“I am in no mood to play games,” Castiel warned her. “Believe me when I say that it will be extremely painful for you should you fail to tell us what you know.”

Meg snorted, stepping forwards until she was stood at the very edge of the devil’s trap. “I don’t see how it’s _my_ problem if you can’t look after your toys properly. You know what? I wish they _were_ in Hell; I wish I could strip the meat from their bones myself. I wish I could hear them scream. I’d make sure Dean remembered everything he learned from Alastair, tear down that wall in Sam’s head and leave him to torture _himself_ to insanity. But since you ask so nicely -- no, they’re not in Hell. The only way I’d let them come near is if I had the satisfaction of dragging them there myself.”

“She telling the truth?” Bobby asked after a beat of silence.

“Yes,” Castiel answered. Demons were more difficult to read than humans, twisted perversions of God’s favorite creation. But however corrupt and evil Meg was now, she had been human once and as such, he could look into her and see that she was not lying.

He wasn’t entirely sure where that left them.

“Great. Can we kill her now?”

Meg’s eyes glittered to black, like shards of onyx or the wing casings of a longhorn beetle Castiel had once seen in Peru.

“You really think that’s such a good idea?” She asked. “Hell has to have a leader, but you morons keep killing them: Azazel, Lilith, Lucifer, Crowley. If you keep going, you’re gonna have total anarchy on your hands. You never heard the saying, ‘better the devil you know’?”

Castiel had not heard the saying, but -- and much as he was loathe to admit it -- she had a point. Hell was chaos, but at least it was structured chaos. Castiel had seen firsthand in Heaven what the effects of removing order and regiment could be, and he was fairly confident in the assumption that a rogue Hell was something none of them wanted.

But for all that -- when Castiel had kissed Meg, he had felt the soul of her host trapped inside, wrapped up in the demon’s coils and screaming for deliverance. Though he knew in an abstract manner that it was absurd to place the wellbeing of one human over the wellbeing of several million others, he could not in good conscience allow Meg to live, knowing that her continued existence caused so much suffering.

Before she had time to so much as blink, he stepped into the devil’s trap, slamming his palm against her forehead and purifying her with a touch. Meg died screaming, in a blaze of orange light; the host body crumpled bonelessly to the floor, and Castiel did not have to check in order to know that she was also dead. Compared with the agonies of possession, it was probably a blessing.

Castiel tried very hard not to think of Jimmy Novak.

“So if they’re not in Heaven and they’re not in Hell,” Bobby began slowly, “where exactly does that leave?”

“I don’t know,” Castiel replied honestly, disturbed by the lack of solid ideas that came to mind. “But I will find out.”

“Oh, yeah? How exactly do you plan to do that?”

At one time, Castiel would have taken offence at the blatant disrespect in Bobby’s tone, but he was wiser about humanity now, and he understood all too well that the man was grieving.

“I will find them,” he promised, and prayed that he would be able to deliver on it. “You have my word.”

He would possibly have said more, but it was at this point he felt a distinct tug on his essence, something calling him from some other place in the world. Castiel attempted to resist the summoning, but it was futile; he had no choice but to obey, and with one last, helpless look at Bobby, he let himself be pulled away.

+

It was not an easy thing, to summon an angel. When Castiel had first appeared to Dean and Bobby in Pontiac, it was because he had decided to reveal himself to them, not because he had been compelled to in any way. It was for this reason that he felt something akin to anxiety at being summoned by some unknown force to what appeared to be an empty diner similar to the ones often frequented by Dean and Sam.

He was disoriented from the journey, and so it took him a second or two to regain his bearings. Once he did, he also realized that he was not alone, and drew his sword in anticipation. It was a second longer before it dawned on him that the weapon would be of no use whatsoever against his present company.

The being sat in the back of the room was an ancient one, and more powerful by far than Castiel or any of his brothers. Something not contingent, but _necessary_ ; not so much a physical being as a concept, an abstraction made flesh. Castiel knew beyond any shadow of a doubt who it was that had brought him here, though a part of him couldn’t help but wish that he did not.

“Hello, Castiel,” Death said, without looking at him or acknowledging him in any other way, and the Horseman’s voice was like a thousand plagues, like the tearing of Castiel’s sword through the soft give of a vessel’s flesh, like the Apocalypse threatening to rise up and swallow them whole all over again. “Won’t you join me?”

Castiel ignored the overwhelming urge to flee, moving towards Death’s table with a caution he hoped did not show. He stowed the sword back inside his coat but could not help tightening his grip on the hilt, as though it would offer some kind of protection; he scoffed internally when he realized what he was doing, how very _human_ the whole thing was. He sat down in the chair opposite Death when he reached his destination, keeping his eyes trained on the entity across from him. Death appeared human, but Castiel was well aware that this was an illusion; the air in the diner was heavy with something arcane. Not magic -- something older and more intrinsic to this world.

Death pushed a hamburger on a plate across the surface of the table towards him, and Castiel realized belatedly that the Horseman had a half-eaten sandwich of his own. He wondered at how he had failed to notice these details before now; it was unlike him to be so inobservant, and it made him uneasy.

Then again, there was very little about this situation that did not make him uneasy.

“I was in the mood for something sweeter myself, but I believe you harbor a particular fondness for red meat,” Death remarked idly. His tone was courteous but detached, as though he cared very little one way or another for Castiel’s preferences but found them interesting enough to indulge.

Castiel studied the burger, but made no move to pick it up. It was a curious thing: even though he had not been thinking of food -- had not, in fact, thought of food at all since those last desperate days of the Apocalypse, when he was all but human and needed to keep a relentless supply of carbohydrates and fats to his body just to remain conscious -- he suddenly found himself _craving_ it with an intensity not unlike the way he had felt under Famine’s manipulation. He resisted the temptation, however, clenching his hands into fists and waiting for Death to speak again.

He did not have to wait long.

“I’ve been wanting to speak with you for an awfully long time, Castiel. Tell me something, do you know what you are?”

Castiel was the angel of Thursdays; he was a soldier of God; he was the leader of Heaven’s revolution (though it was a position he deeply resented) and he was a friend of the Winchesters. He was tired and frustrated and lonely and rapidly running out of options in a war he was losing by further degrees every day. Any of these responses would have answered the question both honestly and accurately, yet Castiel suspected that Death was looking for something else entirely, and so he remained silent.

“You are an anomaly,” Death told him, apparently unconcerned by Castiel’s inability to reply. “A fluke. A mistake in the scriptures of Creation that was somehow overlooked. Did you ever wonder how it was that the actions of one rebellious angel managed to subvert a prophecy put in place millennia ago by those far older and wiser than you?”

“My actions accomplished nothing,” Castiel argued; whatever it was that Death was trying to tell him, he must surely have been mistaken. “I was too late. Lucifer still rose --”

“Be that as it may, your choice to stand with humanity -- or more specifically, with Dean Winchester -- set in motion a chain of events that eventually led to the Apocalypse being averted. Tell me, if it had been another angel to find Dean in Hell -- your friend Uriel, perhaps -- would the story have unfolded in quite the same manner? All actions have consequences, and an alteration to even the smallest detail would have resulted in an entirely different outcome. There is no such thing as luck, but that doesn’t mean that fate is set in stone.”

There was a brief pause while Castiel attempted to process this, but he didn’t get very far before Death was glancing down at his plate, the burger still untouched.

“ _Eat_.”

The imperative carried with it a hint of threat, and Castiel reluctantly picked up the burger, taking the smallest bite possible. Even then, the tastes and sensations seemed to erupt on his tongue: the tang of the cheese; the grease from the meat; crisp lettuce and the slight doughiness of the bread. It had been so long since he last did something simply for the _pleasure_ of it -- because he wanted to rather than because it was required of him -- that he couldn’t stop the slight sigh of appreciation from passing his lips. Death watched him closely, and Castiel suddenly understood why Dean had always complained of feeling unnerved whenever he was stared at.

“You truly are a fascinating creature,” Death observed. Lucifer had said something similar to him once, and it was as disconcerting to hear now as it had been then. Castiel realized with a jolt that he had not thought of Dean and Sam at all since being summoned here, and cursed himself for being so easily distracted.

“I don’t have time for philosophical discussions,” he snapped, failing in his attempts to keep the irritation from his voice. Patience might have been a virtue, but it was never one of Castiel’s. “I need to find --”

“Castiel, are you aware that the only reason for your continued existence is a contract that exists between myself and your Father, forged at the time of your second resurrection? Curious though you undoubtedly are, you are still nothing more than a tool with a job to carry out; the second you cease to be of use, that contract can be… terminated.”

This time the threat was obvious, and Castiel found that he felt strangely cold in a way that had little to do with external temperature fluctuations. Even that, however, did not douse the bright flare of anger that surged within him at the implications of what Death had revealed, his temper short and frayed in a way that it had never been before the Apocalypse.

“My Father would do well to remember that He also gave free will to angels,” he seethed, not caring how close to blasphemy he was. “I am nobody’s hammer.”

The hard plastic chair Death was sitting on gave a wounded groan as the Horseman leaned forwards, narrowed eyes intent upon Castiel’s face. Castiel sat tense, wings poised for flight even though he knew it would do him no good.

There would be no outrunning Death itself.

“I can certainly see Dean’s influence on you,” Death mused after several seconds had passed. “A fascinating creature indeed.”

He sat back again, but Castiel did not relax. He was far from being out of danger, even if the imminent promise of execution seemed to have passed.

“As it happens, this latest plight of the Winchesters is the reason I wished to speak with you,” Death began. Castiel wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or nervous; any news should surely be something, but given that it was being delivered by the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse, he doubted it would be anything good. “I’m going to assume you are already aware of the matter of their missing souls.”

It wasn’t really a question, but Castiel found himself answering anyway. “Yes. They are not in Heaven; not in Hell either, as far as I can tell. I --”

“That’s because your brother is holding them hostage.”

Castiel had millions of brothers, but it did not take him very long to work out which one Death was referring to. It wasn’t as though the possibility hadn’t occurred to him before, given the nature of the killings.

“Raphael.”

Death inclined his head in acknowledgement. “The angel who carried out the killings intercepted my reaper and stole the souls. This, by the way, is precisely why I _loathe_ angels. You call yourselves the agents of fate, and you play with life and death as it though it were your right, as though you are anything more than pawns in this game, just because your Father is no longer around to tell you how to behave. I will be the first to criticize God on numerous accounts, but I can’t truly blame Him for running away if this is what He had to contend with: a bunch of squabbling, neurotic infants, squandering the immortality you were gifted with by slaughtering one another because you can think of nothing better to do.”

Castiel’s anger swelled again, a growing tempest he could barely contain within his vessel; his hands -- which had been gripping the edge of the table -- tightened to such an extent that his fingers left indentations in the metal. Several salt shakers exploded spontaneously, sending plumes of white up into the air. Death spared a brief glance for the carnage; if Castiel did not know any better, he would say that the Horseman looked vaguely amused.

“As I was saying,” Death continued calmly, as though nothing had happened, “The souls of Sam and Dean Winchester are in Raphael’s possession. He intends to use them to bargain with you.”

Castiel felt a brief tremor of unease at the confirmation that the brothers’ current predicament was, indeed, his fault. He forced it down, however; wallowing in guilt would not aid him in his quest to restore them.

“Raphael knows I have the weapons of Heaven. Why --?”

“He also knows that you would not dare to use them when your human friends may be caught in the crossfire.”

It occurred to Castiel to wonder why Death was bothering to share this information with him; it was not typically the way of Horsemen to act as messengers between angels.

“If these are truly Raphael’s intentions, why does he not tell me himself?”

“I’m sure he will do, eventually. However, it was… beneficial to me to get here first.”

Castiel still did not understand, and felt desperately as though he was missing something. “Why?”

Death regarded him for a long moment before leaning closer once again. “I wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of retrieving Sam Winchester’s soul from the Cage if I had wanted he and his brother to become bargaining chips in your ridiculous war. Sam and Dean are doing a job for me, and it’s far from over. I could have them replaced, of course, but that would require more time and effort, so I’m being economical about it and utilizing one of my other players. Namely, you.”

And suddenly all became clear. Death’s plan was infallible; as much as Castiel resented being used as a pawn, there was no way he could refuse. To do so would seal whatever fate Raphael had envisioned for the Winchesters. Castiel remembered all too clearly his brother’s threat of torture when he and Dean had first imprisoned him in Maine over two years ago. He could only hope that Raphael would not harm them for the time being, until he had presented Castiel with his ultimatum.

“I don’t understand what you want me to do,” he admitted, though not without some resentment. “Without the weapons, I have no hope of defeating Raphael. An archangel can only be killed by another archangel’s blade.”

“Yes,” Death agreed mildly. “I see the problem. It might interest you to know that the goddess Kali shared an… _intimate_ relationship with one of your older brothers, and may be in possession of something that can help you.”

The words nudged something deep within Castiel’s memory; the name _Kali_ resonated with him, although he knew that he had never met her. For some reason he found he associated it with Dean… Yes, Dean had spoken to him once about Kali, he was quite sure, though Castiel had not been himself at the time. That painful jolt in his existence when he had been human; after Pestilence and before Detroit, sitting on Bobby’s moth-eaten sofa, and Dean had handed him a beer and offered to _fill you in on everything_ , and then he had talked about a storm of Biblical proportions, and a hotel that put chocolates on the pillows, and Kali, and… _Gabriel_.

Instantly, he knew what Death was trying to tell him. Kali had Gabriel’s sword. And Castiel could use it to kill Raphael. Win the war, and save his friends, all in one go.

And just like that -- for the first time in what felt like an eternity -- Castiel felt a small flicker of hope.

+

The Dakshineswar Kali Temple was a relatively new structure in terms of human history, only completed in the middle-nineteenth century, but it was imbued with an ancient power that Castiel could feel in the very foundations of the place. Power that was only strengthened in the presence of the one who stood before him now, the temple’s namesake and its benefactor: Kali, _Bhavatarini_ ; the Black One, the Destroyer; also, paradoxically, the Redeemer.

Unlike angels, pagan gods did not need a vessel in order to take human form. Instead they used illusions, warping reality in such a way to conceal themselves so that they could walk the earth undetected. Castiel was not human, though, and the attractive female that Dean and Sam knew as Kali did a poor job of hiding her true form from his angelic perception. The two visages overlapped and merged in a way that was disjointed and incoherent, and every so often an extra appendage or an expanse of bluish skin would flash into existence at the edge of his periphery.

The ineffective disguise, however, did not make Castiel any less wary of her. Kali was an old goddess, the weave of time and change caught up in her essence. A vicious slayer of demons known for her ruthlessness since antiquity, and one who had held angels in disdain long before her encounter with Lucifer.

“Castiel,” she greeted him neutrally, and his name sounded strange on her tongue. “Yes, I know who you are, not to mention _what_. You have some nerve, I’ll grant you that.”

“Kali,” he returned carefully; his wings unfurled themselves on the metaphysical plane, arcing upwards in a defensive pose. He knew that Kali could see them from the way her eyes tracked above his head with the barest flicker of amusement. “I need to speak with you.”

“Oh?” One delicate human eyebrow arched even as her true face flared briefly into view, contorted with irritation. “For what purpose, exactly? And make it quick; my patience is limited.”

Castiel licked his lips; another pointless habit he had acquired during his Fall. _Nervous tics,_ Dean called them. “I wish to strike a deal.”

Kali snorted, moving closer in what was a clear violation of personal space. “Then perhaps you would fare better standing at a crossroads. I am no common demon, Castiel.”

“Nevertheless, it must be you.”

Kali studied him a moment longer. She reeked of death and war; the acrid scent of burning flesh, the coppery taint of freshly spilled blood. They were smells Castiel was all too-well acquainted with.

“Whatever you want, the answer is no. I know your kind, and you’re all the same; as arrogant and self-serving as anything that ever crawled out of Hell. You have far more in common with Lucifer than any of you are willing to admit.”

“Gabriel -”

“Gabriel was a fool,” Kali snapped, eyes flashing. “He was a coward and a traitor, and he is dead because of it.”

In spite of the vitriol, there was _feeling_ in her words that it took Castiel a second or two to correctly place as grief.

“You mourn for him,” he observed, surprised in spite of himself.

“And you do not? You feel nothing for the loss of your brother?”

“Gabriel was neither the first nor the last. Many of my brothers have fallen during the course of this war.”

“And many of them by your sword,” Kali returned coolly. Castiel inclined his head in concession of the point, though it pained him to do so.

“Whatever you thought you were going to achieve by seeking me out,” she added, “I’m not in the business of dealing with angels. I suggest you leave, and be thankful that I‘m feeling generous enough to allow you your life.”

Castiel felt his wings twitch in agitation, desperate to do as she asked and fly far away from this place, but he forced himself to stand his ground and the next words came out as steady as any he had spoken before them.

“Is it not true that you owe _your_ life in part to Dean and Sam Winchester?”

Kali seemed to twist and change in her anger at the reminder that she had been helped by humans, the small, delicate thing she masqueraded as briefly swallowed up by her true self in its monstrous entirety before she regained some semblance of her former composure. To her credit, however, she did not deny the accusation.

“My debt is with them; not their attack dog.”

The sneering insult struck an unpleasant chord within Castiel. He found himself remembering what Famine had said to Dean as he hunkered down on the floor of some filthy diner to chew on raw meat: _“you sicced your dog on me; I just… threw him a steak.”_ It was degrading, humiliating, to be thought of in such a way; his job was not to do the Winchesters’ bidding. If he helped them, it was out of a sense of friendship, loyalty -- not duty and certainly not obligation.

“The Winchesters’ souls are currently being held hostage by Raphael; it is his intention to use them to bargain with me. I can’t let him destroy them, but if he wins this war, he _will_ bring the Apocalypse -- the Apocalypse _you_ tried to stop. If that happens, your kind will be exterminated just as surely as everything else that calls this planet home.”

Kali did not relent, scrutinizing him in such a way that Castiel had the impression she was looking past the vessel of flesh that he had made his own, staring right into his very essence, the wisps of thought and feeling and intention that made him _Castiel_ rather than any other angel.

“What would you have me do?” Kali asked finally. “I’m not going to fight your holy war for you.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to,” Castiel replied briskly, pressing on when his tone caused Kali’s expression to harden once again, “but my sources tell me you have something in your possession that will help me win.”

“And what sources might those be?”

“Reliable ones. I know you have Gabriel’s sword, Kali,” he said bluntly, all too aware of the passage of time, every second ticking past like a death knell as the chance of returning Dean and Sam to their bodies grew ever slimmer. “Give it to me.”

“With manners like that, how could I refuse?” Kali asked -- dryly, but with the promise of real danger.

“ _Please_.”

Begging went against the very nature of angels, but so did many other pastimes Castiel was guilty of, and he was not above lowering himself if it would deliver results.

Kali spun on her heel and took three quick paces away from him; the shoes she wasn’t really wearing clicked against the unyielding floor, and Castiel thought of Shiva’s prone body beneath her feet. When she faced him again, the sword was in her hand; larger than Castiel’s own and somehow more lethal in appearance, throwing off sparks where the light hit it. Kali ran a finger along the blade in a way that was almost reverent, and startlingly familiar; Castiel had once witnessed Dean caress a small knife that had belonged to Joanna Harvelle in a similar manner, days after her death.

“You can have it,” Kali said slowly, as though she had not been aware which words would manifest themselves until she started speaking. “On one condition.”

“Name it.”

“My kind is a dying breed. Lucifer’s attack on us didn’t help matters, but we’ve been the victims of Western religion since long before the Apocalypse began. So when you drive this sword into your brother’s heart, you leave us alone. Leave us to conduct our business, and we will do the same for you. Stop trying to convert our followers. Your father is not the only God, and you have no right to push for dominion. For all your self-righteousness, your ways are no more sophisticated than ours, and certainly not less bloodthirsty.”

“You have my word.”

Kali smiled like the first spread of frost in the winter, a cancerous thing that extinguished any struggling sparks of warmth.

“I’m afraid I’m going to need a little more than that.”

She sliced her palm with Gabriel’s sword; the blood that welled up was too bright, too vivid to be considered anything like human. Grabbing Castiel’s hand, she did the same to him without waiting for his consent, and he gasped as the Heaven-forged steel tore through Grace as well as the human meat of his palm.

Kali pressed their bloodied hands together in a mimicry of a human handshake, and Castiel felt the air around them begin to singe and burn before her body ignited, flames licking down her arms to where their hands were joined. The real Kali surfaced once again as the avatar immolated; glaring red eyes and a multitude of waving arms, a string of shrunken severed heads adorning her neck.

The heat seared through his own vessel, blistering him down to the very core; it was torturous, and it was all Castiel could do not to cry out from the pain as his wings thrashed uselessly, struggling to escape. It seemed as though it would never end; it was like being back in Hell, like being reconditioned once again by Zachariah, only it was infinitely worse than either of those things. He was surely about to die, and his last thought was that he had failed Dean and Sam, that he would never see his friends again; never debate theology with Sam or put that grin on Dean’s face and wonder what it would taste like -- and then Kali pulled away, taking the agony with her as she assumed human form once more.

Castiel was left gasping for the breath he didn’t need, and it was some time before he regained his senses enough to realize that he now held Gabriel’s sword in his own hand. He could feel the power of it, heady and overwhelming in a way that his own weapon had never been. It almost felt like a separate entity, some wild, untamed beast that he could attempt to train but would never really succeed in domesticating.

“That was a binding promise you just made,” Kali told him. Castiel blinked and looked up at her; he’d almost forgotten she was even there. “So if you break it -- if a single one of my cousins dies at the hands of an angel -- I will be the next in line to declare war on you. And believe me when I say that all that torture they put you through in Heaven would seem merciful compared to what I can do.”

Castiel nodded; he had no doubt that she was telling the truth. “Of course.”

“If that’s all?” Kali asked sardonically. She disappeared without waiting for an answer.

Castiel tested the weight of the sword in his hand, and the hope he had begun to feel after his conversation with Death increased infinitesimally. He could win; he was quite sure of it now, and it was a welcome feeling to have.

First, however, he would need some help from an old friend.


	3. Chapter 3

Bobby was beginning to get antsy.

Well, truth be told, he’d been antsy for a while. Having your surrogate sons stashed in the basement with their throats cut tended to do that to a person. Actually, you could probably argue that he was remarkably calm given the situation, but he’d seen the look in Castiel’s eyes when he’d vowed to get them back, and as much as Bobby wasn’t his biggest fan, he knew that the angel would fix Sam and Dean or die trying.

That knowledge, however, didn’t stop him from restlessly pacing up and down the yard, frustrated more than anything else by his own inability to do anything of use. The fact still remained that it was now several hours since Castiel had disappeared from his own damn front room without warning, and Bobby had no clue where he’d gone and what had happened to him in the meantime. Even Castiel, who seemed to perform impossible feats on a semi-regular basis, would struggle to bring Sam and Dean back if he’d gone and got _himself_ killed in the process.

His mental wanderings were interrupted by the soft fluttering of wings, as though he’d somehow summoned Castiel just by thinking about him. Bobby turned just in time to see the angel materialize behind him, looking slightly more harassed than usual and like he was in need of a good night’s sleep, but not particularly worse for the wear. A split-second later, what Bobby could only assume was another angel appeared next to him: a middle-aged guy in a v-neck and suit jacket with sandy hair and a smug expression that made Bobby’s skin crawl.

“Where the hell have you been?” He demanded of Castiel. “And who’s this guy supposed to be?”

Castiel looked slightly taken aback, as though he couldn’t decide which question to answer first. He was saved from having to make the choice when the unknown angel stepped forward smoothly, looking at Bobby as though he was some unpleasant but entirely non-threatening strain of bacteria in a Petri dish.

“Balthazar,” he introduced himself. “And judging from the surly attitude, trucker’s cap and abundance of plaid, you must be Bobby Singer.”

“Balthazar?” The name was familiar, and not in a good way. “You the asshat who told Sam to kill me?”

“It wasn’t _quite_ like that,” Balthazar objected, although his tone suggested he really couldn’t care one way or the other what Bobby thought. “The boy came to me looking for advice to keep that pesky soul out of his meatsuit; I can’t be held responsible for however he chose to interpret the information I gave him.”

If Castiel was surprised by any of this he certainly didn’t show it -- but then he always did have a winning poker face, and when Bobby looked over to him it became obvious that Castiel might well have been in another dimension for all the attention he was paying. He’d walked some distance away from them by now and was tracing contemplative fingers over the metalwork of one of the clapped-out cars Bobby had been meaning to fix. It was clear from the motion of his hand that he wasn’t just doodling absently; he was drawing something, invisible signs and sigils known only to him.

“Did you hear me, boy?” Bobby asked, then cringed internally as he realized how ridiculous it was to refer to a millennia-old celestial warrior as such. “I said, where the hell have you been? You just decide to take a vacation or something?”

“I was summoned,” Castiel replied in that infuriatingly vague way of his.

“Summoned? By who?”

“That is not of import,” Castiel said dismissively. “I know who has Sam and Dean, and I may be able to get them back, but we don’t have much time.”

“Time?” Bobby really didn’t like the way this conversation was going. “Time for what?”

He was ignored as both angels suddenly stood to attention with faraway expressions on their faces, as though listening to some broadcast that human ears couldn’t detect. Bobby remembered Dean talking about ‘angel radio’, and thought that might not be so far from the truth.

“I suppose that was Raphael showing his hand,” Balthazar said grimly after some time, shaking his head as if to clear it.

“Raphael?” Bobby echoed, feeling as though he was at least ten steps behind.

“Yes,” Castiel drew a knife and sliced open his arm as he spoke, running his fingers through the blood and using it to draw what Bobby could only assume was some kind of sigil on one of the cars. Apparently taking some kind of cue from this, Balthazar did the same, walking maybe ten feet away to repeat the design. “He’s holding Dean and Sam hostage in the hopes that doing so will convince me to surrender.”

“And I take it all this means you’re not going to.”

Castiel looked at him with something close to regret. “You know I can’t do that. If Raphael wins this war --”

“Yeah, it’ll be the end of the world, I get it,” Bobby cut him off, unable to keep his frustration from spilling over. “So what _are_ you doing?”

Castiel sighed, as though wondering why people insisted on making life so very difficult for him. “I’m going to bring Raphael here and fight him.”

Bobby gave that a moment to sink in. There was no way he could be serious -- except when was Castiel ever _not_ serious? “You’re telling me you’re going to bring the armies of Heaven down on my damn backyard?”

“Not quite. If Raphael believes my intention is to surrender, he won’t bring many with him. I expect he’ll want the satisfaction of killing me himself.”

“So? Even if it’s just Raphael, you’re _still_ gonna get slaughtered.”

“Maybe not,” Balthazar piped up. “Cas here went and found himself a shiny archangel sword.”

Abruptly, Castiel turned on his heel and walked away, taking about twenty paces before stopping in front of another car and drawing more bloody patterns on the metal body. If the stakes were anything less than what they were, Bobby might have taken exception.

“What’s with all the finger-painting, anyway?”

“These sigils mark out points along a perimeter,” Castiel explained. “When finished, they form a circle that will contain angels indefinitely, so long as the sigils remain undamaged. That way, even if Raphael kills me, he’ll still be trapped. I know this is a risk,” he added, looking strangely conflicted, “but it’s the only way.”

“Couldn’t you just trap him in holy fire like you and Dean did in Maine?”

“Yeah, and just have him call his entire army down on our heads?” Balthazar snarked. “That sounds like a fantastic plan; thanks for the input.”

“I know Raphael,” Castiel mused, ignoring him entirely. “He’s strong, but he lacks creativity. He won’t be expecting this: it comes from a very obscure branch of Enochian magic, and consists of at least one-third improvisation.”

“You mean to tell me you’re making this up as you go along?”

Castiel looked up from where he was adding the finishing touches to yet another intricate swirl of blood, and there was something strangely wistful about his expression.

“I didn’t always fight on the frontlines, Bobby. In the old order my role was mainly in strategy, tactics. I planned attacks, devised spells; I became rather good at manipulating the rules to my advantage.”

When Bobby thought back to all the times Castiel had exploited loopholes in Heavenly statute to help them out, the explanation made a certain degree of sense. “I thought you were supposed to be a diplomat.”

Castiel’s face twisted into a bitter facsimile of a smile. “I can be. I haven’t had much opportunity, as of late.”

“Are you two done bonding?” Balthazar asked, rolling his eyes. “Because I don’t want to ruin the moment or anything, but it’s kind of important that we get this right. You know, what with the avenging archangel you’re about to call down.”

The conversation died down after that; there was a lot of ground to cover, but with Castiel and Balthazar working together, they managed to be done in under an hour.

“We’re ready,” Castiel declared eventually. He turned to Balthazar, his expression -- if it could be called that -- one of reluctant resignation. “You’re going to have to draw the last sigil as soon as Raphael steps inside the circle to close it.”

“I know the drill, Cas. Don’t get your panties bunched.”

“And if this all goes wrong… you know where the weapons are. Can I trust you to destroy them?”

“You know you can,” Balthazar assured him, suddenly serious.

Castiel nodded; then he stepped back so that he was inside the circle, tilting his face up to the sky as he chanted in Enochian. Though he couldn’t understand the words, Bobby could feel their power; something tangible that resonated right down to his bones, making him shiver. The guileless blue eyes and penchant for acting dumb often made it easy to forget the truth of what Castiel was, but in this moment there was no mistaking him for anything other than an angel.

For a short while, nothing happened. Then heavy clouds began to roll in overhead, eclipsing what had previously been a relatively pleasant day. A wind picked up that whipped the end of Castiel’s coat out behind him; thunder cracked somewhere in the distance.

“He’s coming,” Castiel said. If Bobby didn’t know any better, he would say he sounded scared.

“Sorry, Bobby,” Balthazar said, stepping right in front of him, smirking all over his face for some reason, “but I do believe you’re on the bench for this one.”

The angel touched two fingers to his forehead, and in the next instant Bobby found himself locked in the panic room with two dead bodies and no way of knowing what the hell was happening outside.

 _Goddamn angels._

+

Raphael arrived flanked by two of his followers, each one carrying a seemingly nondescript black briefcase similar to the kind Famine had used to secure the souls of his victims. Even without that prior knowledge, however, Castiel would have known their contents. He could _feel_ them: the bright spark of Dean’s soul, the darker taint of Sam’s; unobscured by the sigils etched into their ribs. His relief warred with anxiety; they were _right there_ , but before he could help them he would have to kill his brother.

His brother, the third most powerful being ever created by God’s hand. There was a disharmony in the way Raphael fit his new vessel; the woman’s name in life had been Colette Finnerman, a New York lawyer and paternal cousin of Raphael’s true vessel. It wasn’t an ideal match, but it scarcely mattered. Raphael was still an archangel. Castiel could see his true glory, beyond the suit of blood and bone; the span of Raphael’s wings dwarfed his own to an intimidating degree.

And there was a further problem: Raphael had appeared just outside the limits of the protective circle, meaning that Castiel would have to somehow lure him inside if Balthazar was to draw the final sigil. Not the most impossible aspect of this plan by any stretch of the imagination, but it complicated matters.

“Castiel,” Raphael greeted; neutrally on the surface, but there was a distinct shade of hatred coloring the name. “Have you seen sense, finally?”

“You first,” Castiel demanded, backing up a step. Raphael advanced as though following from a script. “The Winchesters. Are they unharmed?”

Raphael took another step closer. One, maybe two more, and Balthazar could close the barrier. “They’re safe. And will remain so, provided you deliver on your end of the bargain.”

Without a doubt, Castiel was reaching levels of recklessness that would make even Dean proud. Behind Raphael, he saw Balthazar draw Bobby’s knife across his palm in preparation to paint the last sigil. He would need to be fast, for this to work. Castiel took another step backwards, willing Raphael to follow.

“Then yes. I surrender.”

Raphael smiled unpleasantly and walked forward three more paces. Balthazar moved so quickly to close the barrier that he was a blur even to Castiel, but he needn’t have bothered; Raphael clearly intended to take his time with Castiel’s execution now that he had him where he wanted him, and Castiel silently thanked God for his brother’s penchant for theatrics.

Castiel felt the surge of power when Balthazar finished the sigil, the perimeter sealing itself so that he and Raphael were trapped inside.

For the first time, it dawned on him that only one of them would be getting out alive.

Raphael whirled to glare at Balthazar, acknowledging the other angel for the first time since Castiel had called him down.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Balthazar said, not sounding apologetic in the least, “does that make things awkward?”

In the next second, Raphael’s soldiers dropped the soul-briefcases and charged him, cutting and slashing with their swords. For a moment, Castiel was afraid that this would be another friend’s blood on his hands, but he needn’t have been. Balthazar may not have fought for a long time, but it clearly hadn’t lessened his proficiency with a blade as he drew his own weapon and held off his opponents easily, outnumbered though he was.

Castiel was forced to draw his attention away from the fight when Raphael turned back to him, burning with barely-contained fury.

“So you’re a liar as well as a traitor,” he sneered. “Tell me, what exactly is the purpose of this?”

“We finish this, here and now,” Castiel told him. “No armies, no holy weapons; just you and me. No more angels need to die because of us.”

Castiel was still learning to appreciate the finer points of irony, but when his words were punctuated by a bright flare of Grace and a choked-off scream as Balthazar dispatched one of his attackers, he couldn’t think it anything other than deeply ironic.

“This is precisely your weakness. You care too much. For your human friends; for the poor, misguided drones who follow you; for this wretched, miserable planet. It was always going to be your undoing.”

Another flash, another scream as the second angel fell at Balthazar’s sword. Raphael did not react.

“And what of the ones who follow you? You truly feel nothing for them?” Castiel asked. He already knew as much, but he still had difficulty believing it. Whatever else they may be, angels were not created to slaughter one another, and with every casualty taken by this war Castiel felt himself growing just that little bit more weary.

“It is the way of angels. We die violently, or we live forever.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way.”

Raphael’s eyes narrowed minutely, and Castiel could tell that he was now growing tired of philosophizing, ready to move in for the kill. He began to walk around the boundaries of the protective barrier, testing them; Castiel circled in the opposite direction, until they were turning rings around one another like two lions on a nature documentary Castiel had once watched during his year cut off from Heaven, in a dusty motel room with Dean snoring next to him.

“Yes, it does.” Raphael’s sword manifested itself as he spoke, long and sleek and deadly, the blade even sharper and crueler than Castiel remembered. “Do you really think you can defeat me like this? You don’t stand a chance without your stolen weapons. You’re not an archangel, Castiel.”

“No, I’m not,” Castiel agreed quietly. He gathered his strength and called on Gabriel’s sword, felt the strange weight of it materialize in his hand. “But I have an archangel’s blade.”

It was almost amusing; Colette Finnerman’s facial expression did not change, but Castiel could feel the shock and outrage emanating from Raphael.

“Gabriel’s,” he breathed, and Castiel thought there was just a touch of sorrow there, at the memory of the youngest archangel, but it was over so quickly he could well have imagined it. “Kali, I suppose, is responsible for you having that.”

Castiel inclined his head.

“It matters not. No matter how many pagan goddesses you have on your side, no matter whose sword you wield -- I will crush you, little brother. And the story will end as it was supposed to.”

Castiel couldn’t see the briefcases, didn’t know where they’d gone in the chaos -- but he could still feel their contents somewhere nearby, pulsing out waves of energy that were inescapably _Dean_ and _Sam_. It gave him a strange kind of comfort.

He could not fail. If he did, the results would be catastrophic.

“Don’t be so sure of that.”

He tightened his grip on the hilt of Gabriel’s sword and prayed to God in earnest for the first time in well over a year that he would succeed.

Then it began.

Raphael moved fast, and Castiel barely had time to raise his sword up in a defensive gesture to block the attack. Their blades clashed, and the impact of metal on metal resonated straight through him, setting cells and molecules vibrating to a new frequency. Raphael spun away, the vessel’s long hair flying out behind him before he whirled back again, slashing in a low, wide arc that Castiel had to fling himself away from in order to dodge. Not wanting to remain on the defense, he lashed out with his own sword as soon as Raphael came back within reach, the flat of it glancing off of Raphael’s shoulder and leaving a tear in the expensive suit jacket.

To an outside observer, it might have looked like a choreographed battle scene for a movie, the two of them dancing and weaving around each other as they were, but there was nothing false about this. It was a brutal, kill-or-be-killed fight to the death. Raphael was vicious, slicing and jabbing with righteous fury, motivated by a real desire to kill; he was wrath personified, an avenging archangel wrapped in fleshy packaging. The smaller vessel gave him an extra advantage, too, in making him more agile and flexible than his opponent, easily ducking away from attacks he would have had difficulty outmaneuvering in his old body.

And Castiel -- Castiel was growing tired already. He fought hard, harder than he had ever fought before, but his muscles ached and burned from trying to keep pace with Raphael, straining in ways that no angel should have to. He knew that his movements lacked the ferocity and conviction of Raphael’s; necessary though it might have been, when all was said and done he didn’t really want to kill this brother any more than he had the multitude of others who had gone before.

He was so busy trying to avoid the point of Raphael’s sword that he didn’t notice the fist arcing towards his face until it was too late; Raphael caught him square across the jaw, and the force of the blow had Castiel flying backwards several feet, landing in a sprawl over the bonnet of one Bobby’s cars. The metalwork crumpled and buckled as his body hit it like a stone flung from a slingshot, and he remembered how he’d destroyed Sam’s vehicle when he fell on it back in Pennsylvania. He thought he heard Balthazar shout something -- a warning, maybe -- from outside the circle, but he couldn’t make out the words.

He must have traveled some distance across the yard, but Raphael was there in less than a second, wings settling as he landed in front of Castiel. He raised his sword, and Castiel rolled out of the way just a fraction too late. The weapon tore through fabric and skin and muscle somewhere just above his elbow; Castiel despised the weak, helpless sound it pulled from him, but he could not help it. As far as the vessel was concerned, it was nothing more than a flesh wound, but Grace was escaping from the rent as well as blood, and it _hurt_ in a way that no mere physical injury ever could.

And yet he had been lucky; if he had moved but a split-second later, the blade would have gone through his heart.

Raphael advanced again, and with so little room left to maneuver Castiel reached for the other side of the yard, snapping his wings out as Raphael brought the sword down a second time. Again, however, he didn’t move quite fast enough, and as he threw himself into flight he felt the razor edge of Raphael’s sword tear through feathers and Grace as it severed his right wing. If he thought the laceration to his arm was painful, it was _nothing_ in comparison to this. The punishments of both Heaven and Hell paled in contrast, as did Kali’s binding magic; the agony was all-consuming, like nothing he had ever experienced before.

He re-materialized far too soon and several meters away from the spot he had been aiming for, crumpling to his knees and falling face-down in the dirt as his legs gave out just as surely as his crippled wings. Mindless from the pain, he dropped Gabriel’s sword, heard it clatter on the ground somewhere nearby. Raphael was there in an instant, nudging him over onto his back, and Castiel had no choice but to comply, rolling bonelessly where Raphael’s foot dictated. When he looked up at his brother, the face of Raphael’s vessel was twisted into something spiteful, vindictive; if Castiel had ever been in any doubt, it was confirmation that this battle was no longer about a mere difference of opinion, two opposing sides in a war. It was _personal_ , at least from Raphael’s perspective.

Raphael lifted his foot and slammed it down on Castiel’s throat, forcing the long, thin spike of Colette Finnerman’s shoe heel through the vulnerable flesh, sliding between the cartilage rings of his trachea. Blood rushed in immediately as air was expelled, and Castiel didn’t need to breathe but he choked anyway, making horrible wet gasping noises as his lungs strained on pure reflex.

Raphael crouched down, pushing the heel in even further. His hand threaded through Castiel’s hair and tightened into a fist, though the pull barely registered through the haze of pain coming from everywhere else.

“Now do you see, brother?” Raphael hissed softly. “Now do you see how little God cares? If He will not bring us Paradise, we must take it for ourselves.”

Castiel was fairly certain that Balthazar was shouting again, but as before, the words were a mystery to him. All he could think was that if he were to die now, this world and everything within it that he had twice before given his life to protect -- everything he _loved_ , as much a being such as him was able to experience that emotion -- would be annihilated. He reached out with his uninjured arm, ignoring the liquid fire that ripped through him as best he could to scrabble in the dirt until his fingers closed around the cold metal of Gabriel’s sword, just as Raphael brought his own weapon up again to deliver the killing blow.

There was no time for hesitation or doubt; he had one chance before it was over, one way or the other. Castiel gathered the last of his rapidly waning strength and threw his arm up and outwards in a wide circle, driving the sword into the small of Raphael’s back with enough force that he felt one of the vessel’s delicate ribs shatter into pieces.

Raphael stared at him, face gone slack with shock as though he couldn’t quite believe Castiel had done it; the grip he had on his own sword loosened and it fell to the ground an inch away from Castiel’s head, clouds of dust billowing up from the ground.

 _I’m sorry_ , Castiel wanted to say, but he couldn’t; not with his throat still obstructed the way it was. He let his hand fall from the sword’s hilt to rest limply against Raphael’s back, sliding in the warm, sticky pool of blood that was already gathering.

Raphael shook his head slowly; then his eyes bulged as light began to burst out, mouth opening in a piercing scream. Castiel closed his own eyes, not wanting to see; but it was a petty human impulse that made little difference, and there was no escape from the brilliant wash of light, the harsh screams as his brother burned away into nothingness. It seemed to last an eternity, though in reality he knew it was a matter of seconds; then there was silence as Raphael collapsed forwards over him, shredding Castiel’s windpipe further where the woman’s shoe was still lodged.

Slowly, Castiel opened his eyes. The sky above him was very blue. He did not move for a long moment; he felt as though he could have easily remained stationary for the rest of eternity, flat on his back in Bobby Singer’s junkyard with the weight of a dead archangel pressed on top of him. If he stayed perfectly still, he could almost forget his mutilated wing; could almost pretend that the damage wasn’t anything half so serious as he knew it was.

Castiel could appreciate the concept of ‘forever’ better than most, but time did not wait for angels. Gingerly, he grasped the now-empty shoe that still impaled him and _tugged_ , wincing as the insides of his throat caved in, the new space created by the heel sliding free causing the walls to seal themselves together with a wet suctioning sound. The damage began to heal itself instantly, and without looking Castiel could tell that the slash to his arm was also on its way to repair.

He feared that his other injury was somewhat more permanent.

“Cas!” And that would be Balthazar, using his sword to destroy the last sigil, breaking the circle and hurrying over. It occurred to Castiel to wonder for the first time what Balthazar was still doing here; why he hadn’t flown to the panic room and reunited Dean and Sam with their bodies the instant he had bested Raphael’s agents.

“Fucking hell, Cas, you won,” Balthazar was saying as he approached; something Castiel found strange, because it didn’t feel much like a victory. He pushed the body -- for that was all it was now, the empty vessel of an innocent woman who hadn’t known what she was agreeing to -- off of him and raised his hands above his face, studying them. The blood that stained them was literal now, dark red and already beginning to dry in places.

He struggled with some difficulty to sit upright as Balthazar drew level with him, then immediately regretted this course of action as he experienced an uncomfortable lurching sensation in his lower abdomen with the change of position, his head going light and strange. He was nauseous, he realized, on the verge of unconsciousness for the first time since he had been restored to Grace. The pain intensified, too; it was no longer localized to the site of the initial injury, spreading like a cancer until he could feel it _everywhere_.

“Why are you still here?” He asked, and was faintly surprised by the steadiness of his own voice. “You should have gone to fix Dean and Sam.”

Balthazar grinned. “What, and miss all the action? Are you serious? Besides which -- let’s just say you weren’t exactly the horse I was betting on. If you were going to get turned into Raphael’s pincushion, I wasn’t going to let you do it alone.”

Castiel thought that was as close as Balthazar was ever going to get to openly admitting concern. It was enough.

“Thank you. But -- the souls?”

Balthazar rolled his eyes and vanished without saying a word. He was back less than an instant later, however, holding a black briefcase in each hand. Castiel could feel them again, stronger than ever now; one of them riddled with a myriad of cracks and fissures that had never quite healed over, the other barely held together with a wall that was forever on the brink of collapse. But they were _alive_ \-- Castiel felt the thrum of their vitality like a physical thing, and would swear that his own suffering seemed to lessen with it.

He found himself having to reassess that evaluation, however, as he climbed to his feet and the wave of inertia that crashed over him had him swaying unsteadily. He felt like his true self was trying to burst through his skin, as though he was in danger of either exploding outwards or collapsing in on himself at any given moment, the failing threads of his being tying themselves in knots and tearing him apart from the inside out. A supernova or a black hole -- he wondered which would hurt the most.

He was going to die; this much he knew, and when the time came he suspected he would welcome it. He just needed to hold on a little while longer.

“Cas, you’re hurt.”

“I’m fine,” Castiel snapped, even as he longed to scream the exact opposite.

“Yes, right, of course you’re fine. That why you’re dropping feathers all over the place?”

His words made Castiel glance down, just in time to see a single, translucent shard of Grace curl away from him and drift down to the charcoal shadows of Raphael’s wings, where it seemed to simply melt away into the ground. Another followed seconds later, and then another. They weren’t really feathers; at least, not in any sense that humans would understand, but each one was a part of Castiel all the same. He mourned their loss, but he found that this apparent unraveling around the edges left him feeling bizarrely, breathtakingly _free_ , like the exhilarating moment when he had drawn the sigil with his own blood to banish Zachariah on the night Lucifer rose. Dean had told him, once, that dead men were the most dangerous of all because they had nothing left to lose. Castiel hadn’t understood, then.

“Molting season, is it?” Balthazar asked quietly.

“I’m fine,” Castiel repeated, although with less conviction than the first time. “Just -- could you take me to the panic room? I don’t think I can fly on my own.”

“I hope lover-boy deigns to show some gratitude after this one,” Balthazar muttered as he grabbed Castiel’s arm.

Then he lifted his wings, the weft and weave of space-time bending to accommodate them as he took flight. It was strange to experience this as a passenger, his own wings hanging limp and useless and _broken_ instead of carrying the earthy physicality of his vessel. But then the yard shifted seamlessly into the cast-iron oppression of the panic room where Bobby awaited them anxiously, ashen-faced and pale as two more corpses lay cold and accusing on the floor.

“It’s over?” Bobby asked; his voice was still thick with grief, but not for much longer. Castiel didn’t reply, didn’t want to waste energy he couldn’t afford to spare on superfluous words. He took one of the briefcases from Balthazar, the radiance of the soul it contained more familiar to Castiel than anything else on Earth or in Heaven. This was the beacon that had guided him through the labyrinth passageways of Hell, and Castiel would recognize it anywhere.

“Cas, you should let me,” Balthazar protested. From a purely analytic perspective, Castiel knew he had a point; he was far too weak for anything requiring even the slightest amount of exertion, much less replacing a soul within a body. But Castiel had stopped being a purely analytic creature long ago; and perhaps it was selfish, but if he was to die, he wished to feel Dean’s soul cradled within him one last time. If only to remind himself what -- or rather, _who_ \-- all of his sacrifices had been made for, and that they had ultimately been worth it.

“There’s no time,” he told Balthazar, forcing breath into the shapes of vowels and consonants even as his vocal cords pulled and strained with the effort.. The words were true, at least to a certain extent; it was unnatural for human souls to remain separate from their bodies for any length of time, and Dean and Sam had been in their current state for far too long already. Balthazar, however, knew him too well to accept that this was the true reason for his actions; the look he gave Castiel was one of pure disbelief, but he didn’t argue the point further.

“You see to Sam,” Castiel told him. “And be careful: his soul is still fragile after Hell. Make sure the measures Death put in place to protect him remain where they are.”

He didn’t wait for Balthazar’s answer, trusting his brother to do as he instructed. Castiel fell to his knees beside Dean’s lifeless body, quite sure he would never be able to stand again. It didn’t matter; he wouldn’t need to, after this was done. He took in Dean’s face, the spray of freckles over his nose and cheeks, the long, sweeping fringe of his eyelashes, peaceful enough that he could have been sleeping were it not for the vivid red of where an angel’s sword had ripped his throat open, the bloodless pallor of his skin.

 _All of it, for you,_ Castiel thought. The words rang as true now as they had the first time he spoke them.

He opened the briefcase with shaking hands, fumbling briefly with the latch before it was open, and Dean’s soul burst free -- a shining, effervescent thing that was even more beautiful now that the first time Castiel had seen it. It radiated frightened confusion, lost and disoriented at being released from its prison, but Castiel reached out to it, felt the spark of _recognition_ as Dean reacted to his presence, clinging to him as instinctively as when Castiel had led him away from Alastair’s rack.

Dean would forget this, of course, as he had forgotten that first meeting. But Castiel would keep the memory close, guard it jealously until the last spark of Heaven that he carried was extinguished within him.

He felt the full force of their bond for the first time since Hell, built up and fortified into something tangible by years of shared history: of comradeship and camaraderie; of grudging mutual affection and a steep learning curve of trust; of harsh words spoken in haste, whispered roadside confessions and the longing glances that remained unspoken between them; of covetous touches and righteous fury, of sorrow and guilt and faith and _love_. It was everything Dean felt for Castiel, and everything Castiel felt for Dean, and Castiel gathered it close to himself, held Dean’s soul within his dying Grace and wished for forever.

And then -- he let go, easing the spirit back into the house of bones and skin it was made for, trying to ignore the way it protested, reaching for him like a needy child. Castiel willed Dean’s body to heal itself, for the heart to pump blood through arteries and veins stiff with disuse, for the movements of the diaphragm to force air over the lungs. The energy needed was more than he had to spare, but he gave it anyway; even as his Grace writhed and flailed inside him like a wild animal trying to rip itself apart, to set him alight and slow-roast him from within. He could see intermittent flashes of light pulsing beneath the skin of his fingers, and tremors wracked his body that were so severe he had to throw a hand against the floor to keep from falling on top of Dean’s body.

Some distant part of him was terrified by it all -- but then he heard Dean’s soft inhalation, saw the first sliver of jade green as Dean’s eyelids began to lift; somewhere to his right he was vaguely aware of Sam, also beginning to stir, and then he was mostly just relieved.

He had fulfilled his purpose, seen out his mission to the bitter end, and succeeded against all odds.

Now he was tired, and it was finally time to rest.


	4. Chapter 4

Given that his last memory was of falling asleep in a no-star motel in the middle of nowhere, Nebraska, Dean was understandably confused when he opened his eyes to be greeted by the sight of the ugly-ass fan on the ceiling of Bobby’s panic room.

He felt -- _strange_ , was the only word for it, as though he’d been asleep for an unreasonably long amount of time and re-acclimatizing to the land of consciousness was far more effort than it should have been. Kind of like the jetlag after that time they’d gone to Scotland to dig up Crowley’s bones, except ten times more pronounced.

“You gonna stay awake this time, Sleeping Beauty?” A gruff voice demanded -- Bobby’s.

Dean mentally assessed himself; he didn’t feel _right_ , by any stretch of the imagination, and he was struck by the unsettling notion that his body felt too big for him, but he didn’t think he was in danger of falling back to sleep any time soon.

“I think so,” he grunted, wincing at the thickness of his tongue. _Just how long has it been, anyway?_ “Where’s Sam?”

“Right here.” Sam’s voice came from the right, a low groan that sounded about as healthy as Dean felt. Dean turned instinctively to face him, trained from the age of four to respond to Sam’s every word and gesture. His brother was picking himself up off the ground -- and why the hell were they on the _floor_ , anyway? -- like the movement physically hurt, pushing too-long hair out of his eyes and looking around in blatant confusion.

Dean could sympathize. He took a leaf out of Sam’s book and struggled to his feet; his muscles ached like he hadn’t moved them in hours, and seriously, what the hell? He instantly forgot the discomfort, however, when he got his first good look at Bobby’s face. The old man was worn and pale, eyes red-rimmed in a way that suggested he’d been crying, and Bobby didn’t do that shit for no reason.

“Bobby, what the hell happened?”

Bobby shook his head, seemingly at a loss for words, which did exactly nothing to quell the rising sense of foreboding in the pit of Dean’s stomach.

“If you boys die on me one more time, you’ll be sending _me_ into an early grave.”

“We _died?_ ” Sam echoed incredulously. The look Bobby gave him in reply said it all.

“Great,” Dean groused, with more bravado than he was feeling. He couldn’t shake the notion that there was more to all this than Bobby was letting on. He’d died before, plenty of times, and he’d never felt like _this_ in the aftermath. “So, who was it this time? Eve? Meg? Some trigger-happy hunter with a chip on their shoulder over the end of the world?”

“Try none of the above,” Bobby supplied, clearly getting over his apparent shock in record timing. “It was the angels. Specifically a character by the name of Raphael.”

“Raphael? Seriously?” Sam asked, eyebrows furrowing in that way that meant he was trying to piece something together but didn’t yet have all the necessary information. “But -- why? I mean, we’re hardly a threat.”

“Oh, come on, Sam,” Dean said, suspicion beginning to take root, “it wasn’t about us; it was about Cas. Am I right, Bobby?”

“Got it one,” Bobby sighed, removing his trucker’s cap and running his fingers through what little hair he had left. The gesture made him look alarmingly older, and Dean couldn’t decide if it was just the stress of the last few years, or whether the age had snuck up on him without any of them noticing, catching them all unawares. “Apparently Raphael got it into his head that he’d hold your souls for ransom, force Castiel into surrendering that way. ‘Course, he should have known better; that damn angel gives the two of you a run for your money as far as stubbornness goes, and that’s sayin’ something.”

Dean listened, rapt, as Bobby proceeded to explain everything that had gone down while he and Sam had apparently been floating around disembodied in Raphael’s clutches. Which -- _weird_ , but somehow it made sense. It certainly explained the bizarre, out-of-body feeling he was still getting. He felt a warm swelling of pride somewhere in his chest as Bobby recounted the lengths Castiel had gone to for them; no matter how fraught with tension their relationship had been lately, Dean had always known, on that kind of bone-deep, instinctual level he rarely thought about, that Cas would come through for them when it really counted. No matter what other shitty decisions he might make, Cas _always_ came through for them at the eleventh hour -- by this point, it was pretty much in his job description.

“Wait, hold on,” Sam interjected, a step ahead as usual. “So you’re saying the civil war’s over? Just like that? And Cas _won?_ ”

“Well… Raphael’s dead, yeah,” Bobby said somewhat uneasily. “I would know; I had to get rid of the damn body. But Cas didn’t come out of it looking too hot, either.”

Dean felt his stomach drop out at the words, a nauseating hollow left behind. He didn’t even want to think about what Bobby could mean by that, what could have happened to Cas in this apparently epic battle that had gone on while he’d been _dead_. But he had to ask. Had to, because he owed Cas at least that much.

“What -- what do you mean? Bobby, what happened?”

Bobby looked away awkwardly, but was saved from answering by the quiet rushing of wings and Balthazar’s sudden appearance in the room. His usual look of boredom and vague amusement was gone, but the air of superiority still hung over him like a shroud, and Dean felt his day get just that little bit worse.

“Oh good, the Wonder Twins are back with us,” Balthazar snarked upon seeing Dean and Sam awake. For once, Dean chose not rise to the bait.

“Where’s Cas?” He demanded, taking an aggressive step towards Balthazar and not caring in the slightest how little a threat he posed. No matter how much Dean despised the guy, Balthazar obviously felt some kind of fondness towards Castiel, and if he was going to kill them he would have done it long before now.

“I took him to one of the guest bedrooms after he shoved your soul back into that incredibly buff meatsuit. If you want to say your tearful goodbyes, I suggest you get on with it. I don’t know how much longer he can hold on for.”

 _Oh, Jesus._

“What are you talking about?” That was not a tremor in his voice. No way.

Balthazar rolled his eyes, but even Dean had to admit it looked half-hearted. “Raphael got him good, that’s for sure. It was a fatal blow; his Grace is shriveling up inside him as we speak.”

“So that’s it? There’s no chance he could pull through?” Dean asked weakly. He was clutching at straws, but he was no way he could just accept what Balthazar was telling him, what Bobby was telling him. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t _fair_ that Cas should die now, like this, when the war was finally over and they weren’t all looking at him to save the whole damn world.

“Under any normal circumstances, I’d say there wasn’t a cat in hell’s chance,” Balthazar sighed, and in spite of his best efforts Dean felt his hopes lift, just a little, “but Castiel is… different. That body he walks around in is one hundred percent his, now; theoretically, he could survive without his Grace, if he chose to let it go.”

“But he’d be human,” Sam concluded.

“Better than being dead.”

“Some of us might disagree with you there,” Balthazar murmured, and this time Dean couldn’t have held back the glare even if he’d wanted to.

“Yeah, well, not Cas. He’s got more sense than that. You know what, screw this; I’m gonna go talk to him.”

He fairly tore out of the panic room, took the creaking steps two at a time; he found Castiel in his own room, or at least the one he used whenever he and Sam stayed over -- and _of course_ Cas was there, where the hell else would he be? -- but when he got to the open doorway, he just kind of… froze, suspended in stasis, no idea what to say or do or even think next.

Because Bobby had been right: Castiel _didn’t_ look good, not even close. He was curled on his side on the narrow bed, eyes closed and shaking minutely, covered in a fine sheen of sweat. Dean had never seen him looking so weak, not even during that long, slow slide into humanity, and it caused something in his heart to clench painfully. The other times Cas had died had been quick, messy affairs when all other kinds of shit had been going down, and both times he’d been back before Dean had really been able to process that he was ever gone.

This… this was different, and it wasn’t something Dean ever wanted to see -- and not just because he owed Cas, or because they were running low on allies. Fact was, Castiel had been a part of his life for some time now, and Dean couldn’t remember when exactly the angel had managed to insinuate himself on the list of People Who Mattered, but he knew that he had long ago passed the point where he absolutely couldn’t picture his existence without Castiel in it.

“Dean.” As if sensing his presence -- and, God, maybe he had -- Castiel’s head rolled to face him, eyes opening to weary blue. One corner of his mouth twitched in what may have been an attempted smile, though it came off more like a pained grimace. “How are you?”

“Dude,” Dean hovered uncomfortably, rocking back on his heels. “You’re the guy in the bed.”

Castiel looked down at himself briefly, as though this fact had escaped his notice before now. Dean edged further into the room, sat down on a spare corner of mattress -- gingerly, as though any sudden movement might cause Castiel to shatter, and wasn’t that a crazy notion? If there was one person in his life Dean had assumed he would never have to be careful around, it was Cas.

From this close, though, Dean could tell that Castiel’s face was flushed, fever-bright, and his eyes glinted with the look of the not-altogether sane. Every so often, Dean would swear he caught sight of random strobes of light passing beneath Castiel’s skin, but each time, they disappeared before he could tell one way or the other. Tentatively, not even sure if he was allowed, he reached out and laid a hand against the angel’s forehead, the way he would do when Sam got sick as a kid -- and then jerked it back again with a hiss, wincing at the searing heat he found there. If Castiel was anything like human, his insides would have cooked by now.

“Dean,” Castiel said again. He coughed weakly, straining for breath; a single line of blood ran from the corner of his mouth. “Dean, I’m dying.”

He sounded so matter-of-fact about it, like the prospect of his own death meant nothing to him. Dean felt his mouth go dry; he shook his head rapidly, unwilling to accept it.

“No. No you’re not, Cas. You can get through this, Balthazar said --”

“The only hope I have of surviving is to become human again,” Castiel said flatly, and he still worked that intense stare, even horizontal and halfway to unconscious. “I’m not sure that’s what I’d call a preferable alternative.”

“Oh, come on,” Dean aimed for levity, and missed by several feet, “it isn’t all bad.”

This time Castiel did smile, a sad ghost of the expression flickering briefly across his features. “You forget, I was human once before. I didn’t much care for it.”

Dean stared at him, suddenly angry. _Beyond_ angry. “So you’re just giving up then, is that it?”

“ _Dean._ ” He had no idea how Castiel’s voice still managed to command so much power when Castiel himself painted such a pitiful picture, but the tone wasn’t so very different to one he’d used when he threatened to throw Dean back into Hell. “Do you have any idea how old I am? How many wars I’ve fought, how much blood I’ve spilled over the millennia? I witnessed the formation of the universe, I have seen stars collapse and civilizations turn to dust. I am more than your human mind can ever comprehend, Dean Winchester; I have done things you couldn’t even _imagine_ , and I am -- tired.”

Dean couldn’t be sure if Cas had meant to get so personal or if he was just being his usual blunt self, but the words still stung. Perhaps more than they should have, given that Dean was fairly used to having all of his shortcomings listed; but then, he never could handle hearing them from Castiel. Castiel, who apparently had a death wish now.

“You know, Cas, you’re a lot of things, but it’s been a long time since I had you down as a coward.”

Castiel’s eyes widened, and Dean felt momentarily bad about seeing such naked hurt on his face -- but he figured it would be worth it, if it meant Cas would still be alive later for him to apologize to.

“Dean, that’s not --”

“Fair? Nothing about this situation is _fair_ , Cas. It sucks that this is happening, but you can’t just stop fighting. And my _human mind_ might not be able to understand the workings of the cosmos or whatever you were going on about before, but I understand about running away, and that’s what you’re doing right now. It’s easy when you’re busy fighting a war, not to think about everything that makes you scared, and hopeless, and angry -- I know, man, I’ve _been_ there. I threw myself into Hell because I couldn’t live without Sam, and I almost gave myself to Michael just so the end of the world wouldn’t be my responsibility anymore. But it isn’t the answer, Cas; it’s not the easy way out, and it’s damn selfish to everyone who gets left behind.”

Dean measured the stretch of time Castiel stared at him for in his own heartbeats, the sound of them thudding in his ears. He felt as though he’d just split himself right open, shown Cas a glimpse of the deepest, darkest part of himself that no-one else got to see, and now he was waiting to find out what Castiel would do with it. They were teetering on the brink of something, of Castiel choosing either life or death, and Dean was terrified even to breathe.

Then Castiel closed his eyes and the moment splintered, shattered into a thousand pieces, each one jagged-edged and cruel. He knew what was going to happen next, and he didn’t need to hear Castiel confirm it; standing from the bed on legs that were suddenly shaking, he beat a hasty retreat, leaning against the hard wood of the door once it was closed behind him and sinking down to the floor.

If Castiel was determined to commit slow suicide, there was really nothing Dean could do to stop him.

But that didn’t mean he was going to hang around to watch.

+

The park was exactly as Castiel remembered it, save for the fact that there was not a child in sight this time. But the grass was the same, green except for a few sparse patches where it was parched and yellowing, and the wood of the bench against his back and thighs was as hard and unyielding as before. Castiel leaned back against it and thought of the conversation he had had with Dean in this very place -- _can I tell you something if you promise not to tell another soul?_ \-- the first of many that would redefine his whole existence, though he hadn’t known it then.

He wondered, sometimes, if this was what was always supposed to happen. God did work in mysterious ways, after all.

A woman sat down beside him, and he startled because he hadn’t sensed her approach; an unusual occurrence, to say the least. When he looked at her, the situation made even less sense, because he _knew_ her -- he knew the owner of that vivid red hair, those dark eyes that looked at him with such compassion, but her very existence was an impossibility.

“Anna,” he greeted uncertainly, and his voice sounded faint to his own mind. “You can’t be here. You’re dead.” And that was his fault too, at least in part.

A hint of a smile lifted her features. “You’re dreaming, Cas.”

“Angels don’t dream.”

“No,” Anna agreed, “they don’t. But you and me -- were we ever really angels?”

Castiel didn’t follow, and something of it must have shown on his face, because Anna’s smile got wider. “You need to stop being so literal.”

“I don’t know how to be anything else,” Castiel confessed. He didn’t know why he was engaging what he now knew to be a figment of his imagination, but he couldn’t simply will himself to wake up -- if, indeed, he was asleep -- and it seemed the polite thing to do.

Also, possibly, he had missed having a confidant outside of Dean, another angel who understood a little of the things he had to face. There was Balthazar, but he had an infuriating inability to take things seriously.

“I know you don’t,” Anna said, and she wasn’t smiling anymore. “That’s why we need to talk. What do you want, Cas?”

Castiel thought -- no, he _knew_ \-- that nobody had ever asked him that question before. It was still a strange thing, to _want_ after millennia of servitude, and yet he didn’t even have to think about the answer before it was tripping off his tongue.

“I want Dean to be happy.” Then, because it felt incomplete out there on its own: “Sam too.”

Anna smiled again, but this time there was something sad in the curvature of her lips.

“Don’t tell me you still haven’t figured out how to ask for things for yourself.”

Castiel considered this for a long moment, turning it over in his mind. Wanting for himself was even more foreign than wanting for others, but Castiel was not unaccustomed to selfish desires. On the contrary: he suspected he had wanted many things over time, but with no frame of reference had been unable to identify the feeling for what it was.

“There was one time,” he told Anna finally, something which he had never confessed to anyone, “when I watched you kiss Dean. I wanted it for myself; I think it was the first time I ever wanted anything. I saw what you had together, what you’d shared, and I felt envy.”

“It’s a start,” Anna told him, “but you’re still all about Dean. What else?”

“I visited a beach in Fiji once,” Castiel started slowly without really knowing what he was going to say, rolling the syllables carefully around his mouth, testing the shapes of them. “I didn’t find God there, but I remember thinking that I would have liked to stay, just a while longer. I think I would still like to go back, if it was at all possible.”

She had triggered something in his mind now, flipped some kind of switch that had him thinking of all the things he had ever wanted, without even realizing it. He wanted to read books -- as many books as he could find, and then when he’d finished with them he’d read them over and over again, until the spines cracked and the pages got torn. He wanted to eat cherry pie, just to see if it could ever possibly live up to his expectations after hearing Dean talk of it so rapturously on so many occasions. He wanted -- so many things, it seemed. The realization hit him hard, and suddenly, leaving him wondering why he hadn’t seen it before.

“Anna, I don’t want to die.”

“Then you know what you have to do.”

“Will it hurt?” Castiel started to ask, but the park was already sliding away, colors fading, shapes twisting and losing their definition.

He woke up in a cold sweat in Bobby’s spare room, feeling as though he’d been doused in holy oil and set alight. He could see the light of his true self more clearly than ever now, could feel it trying to burst through his skin and scatter him across the universe, back to stardust. If he was going to do something, it would have to be now or never.

Being careful to make as little noise as possible, he rolled out of bed and crept out through the house to Bobby’s yard, forcing himself to keep going when all he wanted to do was collapse into a fetal ball and try to ride out the pain.

Once out there, he took in a deep lungful of night air, looked at the world as an angel for what would be the last time, one way or another, listened to the chatter of his brothers and sisters on the brink of a revolution he had started but would never get to be a part of.

And then he let go.

+

If asked at some point in the future, Dean wouldn’t have been able to say exactly what made him go out into the yard when he did. Maybe he needed some air, maybe he was out to look at the goddamn scenery, who the fuck knew?

Whatever the reason, he couldn’t help thinking that it was no accident he should choose to come out; that he’d been _drawn_ here, if he believed in such things. He’d barely gotten five feet away from the house when he heard a quiet but unmistakable groan from nearby. _Cas_. Heart in his throat, Dean searched for the source of the noise, feeling his breath catch when he finally did.

Castiel was on his knees in a space between the cars, illuminated -- Dean wanted to say it was from the moonlight, but cloud cover was thick enough that there wasn’t much of it filtering down to earth. It took him a second longer to realize that the light was coming from _within_ , something that was inside Castiel himself, growing brighter and more tangible the longer he looked. It made Cas look ethereal, beautiful even, and Dean felt guilty for having the thought because his friend was so obviously in pain.

Dean wasn’t sure what gave him away, but in the next instant Castiel’s eyes opened and fixed on him, unblinking. Dean stared right back, mesmerized by the glow of Castiel’s irises, an almost strobe-like effect that flared and then faded in cycles, as though Castiel was battling to keep it inside himself.

“Dean, you shouldn’t be here,” Castiel gasped, and his voice was so thin that Dean had to strain to hear it.

“What, so you came out here to die alone? Sorry, but that’s not gonna fly with me.”

Castiel shook his head rapidly. “Not to die.”

 _Oh._ The implication of it hit Dean then, everything Cas wasn’t saying. Castiel wasn’t going to die -- he was going to Fall. Because Dean had asked him to; because Castiel might not be the creature of unshakeable faith he had once been, but he had always, _always_ believed in Dean.

“You’re still not doing it alone,” Dean told him. He went to take a step closer, but Castiel held out a hand to ward him off. That death-glare Dean had so often been on the receiving end of was even more effective while Castiel’s eyes were brimming with holy light.

“Don’t come any closer,” Castiel ordered. “Close your eyes, put your hands over your ears, and _don’t move_ until it’s over.”

“How will I know when it’s over?”

“ _Dean._ ” Castiel was incandescent now, like he couldn’t hold it in much longer. He pitched forward, one hand splaying in the dirt to stop him from faceplanting onto the ground. Dean held his hands up in surrender before making a deliberate show of placing them over his ears.

“I hope you’re right about this,” Castiel said. The last thing Dean saw before closing his eyes was the look of utter despair on his face. Then there was an awful wrenching noise, like the fabric of the universe tearing itself in two, and Dean could _feel_ the light surging outwards even if he couldn’t see it, a strange pressure against his eyelids, and it took every bit of resolve he had not to open them and _look_.

And then the screaming began. Harsh, desperate sounds that were worse than anything Dean had heard in Hell, and he was glad when Castiel’s angelic voice superseded his human one -- even as his eardrums threatened to split apart and he felt warm liquid leaking out onto his hands -- because hearing Castiel crying out in agony like that in the smoke-and-whisky voice that had become as familiar to Dean as Sam’s was more than he could handle.

He could feel the light growing brighter, oddly warm against his skin where it surged past him; but it didn’t feel like his eyeballs were in danger of melting, and he was possessed by the need to _see_ , to understand what was happening. He remembered Zachariah, finally killing that bastard and _watching_ as the fucker died -- and for the first time in his life, Dean took a leap of faith.

It looked as though Castiel had gone supernova, light ripping out from his body in all directions, arcing towards the sky in shapes and patterns that Dean thought looked like wings. Looking at him was uncomfortable, like looking at the sun on a clear day, but it didn’t really _hurt_. On the contrary: Dean felt embarrassingly like he was on the receiving end of some kind of religious experience. For the first time in a long time, he found himself looking at Castiel and thinking, _holy shit, this is an angel._

It was somewhat ironic that he was having this particular revelation just as Castiel was ripping that part of himself out to avoid certain death, but Dean had never been renowned for his punctuality.

The screaming built to a crescendo; the light pulsed outwards with such searing intensity that Dean had no choice but to slam his eyes shut again. He was starting to think it would never end when everything just _stopped_ , as suddenly as if a switch had been flipped. The darkness of the night seemed like a totality; the silence absolute save for his own breathing and the ringing in his ears.

Dean opened his eyes and gingerly pried his hands away from where they’d been clamped to the sides of his face, grimacing at the blood on them. Castiel was slumped facedown on the ground, completely still, and for a moment Dean couldn’t move, thinking that Balthazar had been wrong, that Cas had died anyway -- then Castiel groaned faintly and shifted, pushing himself up to sitting with slow, labored movements that looked as though they cost more effort than he had to spare.

Dean didn’t even think -- he rushed forwards, falling to his knees beside Castiel, uncaring that the impact send shockwaves of pain jolting up through both his kneecaps. He fitted his hand to the curve of Castiel’s neck, beneath the collar of his shirt: the skin there was too hot, and Castiel was shaking uncontrollably, but Dean could feel his pulse thrumming underneath; erratic, human, but most of all _alive_.

“Cas, hey. You okay?” He asked, well aware of the idiocy of the question even as it passed his lips. Castiel looked back at him dazedly, breaths coming slightly more harshly than was necessary, a newborn adapting to the need for oxygen.

“Dean,” Castiel breathed, and it seemed fitting that it should be his first word.

“Yeah, I’m here. I got you, you’re okay,” Dean babbled nonsensically, barely aware of what he was saying. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

He snaked his free arm around Castiel’s waist, pulled him closer. Castiel went willingly, leaning his forehead against Dean’s shoulder, clinging to him weakly.

“I gotta tell you, man, that was some light show.”

“I told you not to look,” Castiel slurred into the side of his neck, and the note of disapproval was unmistakable even now. Dean couldn’t help it: he laughed, and if it sounded a little on the hysterical side, well, no-one had to know.

He pressed a kiss to the top of Castiel’s head before he could stop himself, before it occurred to him that that wasn’t something he usually did.

Castiel didn’t seem to have any objections.

Dean wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that, but eventually he began to feel the chill of the night air, and the ache in his knees became more pronounced. He half-supported, half-carried Castiel back to the house, and if Sam and Bobby thought anything of it when he dragged them both upstairs to the same room, they kept it to themselves.


	5. Chapter 5

It had been so long since the last time Dean had woken up in bed with another living being that he could probably be forgiven had he assumed that he was back at Lisa’s, that the last eight months or so had just been one long psychotic break he was finally waking up from.

Yet strangely enough, that wasn’t where his mind went at all. From the second he opened his eyes, he knew exactly who the warm body next to his own belonged to: Cas, still out like a light, snoring gently in the old Zeppelin t-shirt Dean had forced him into.

Stretching, Dean rolled to face him, studying the planes and angles that made up his face, watching Castiel sleep as Castiel had watched _him_ so many times before. Dean had always maintained that that particular habit was creepy and vaguely stalkerish, but from this side of things he could see that it really wasn’t. At least, it didn’t feel that way. It felt _right_ , somehow; like he could happily lie here listening to Castiel’s soft exhalations for hours if the rest of the world would leave them alone long enough. The thought should have sent him running, but he was feeling weirdly at peace with the world right now, in spite of all the shit that had been going down lately.

Castiel had slept relatively peacefully all night; something for which Dean was both thankful and surprised. The last time they had shared this bed -- the night before Detroit -- Castiel had tossed and turned and whimpered all night, waking at one point with a gasp and a filthy look when Dean awkwardly attempted to calm him. Cas had been human then, too, but that had felt like the inevitable end of them all. This, now, felt more like a new beginning, only Dean wasn’t quite sure what exactly it was the beginning _of_.

Castiel sleeping looked younger somehow, without the weight of countless millennia behind those eyes, vulnerable and unguarded in a way he never was while awake. Dean took in the straight slope of his nose, the dark stubble shadowing his jaw; absently, he reached out to run his thumb over the ridge of one sharp cheekbone. It occurred to him after a moment to wonder just what the hell he thought he was doing -- but even then, he didn’t stop.

Dean was beginning to feel as though he was on the brink of some long overdue self-realization when a disconcertingly familiar sound filled the room: the fluttering, tearing noise of invisible wings that he usually associated with Castiel’s imminent arrival, but Castiel was right next to him, and no longer an angel.

He was groping for the knife under his pillow -- for all the good it would do him -- when Balthazar materialized at the foot of the bed, wearing that eternally irritating smirk he had so well perfected. His eyebrows arched theatrically at the sight of Dean and Castiel curled under the covers together, and Dean clamped down on the overwhelming urge to smack him one. If only for the sake of his hand.

“Well. This is cozy.”

Dean gritted his teeth. “You got something to say, say it.”

“Fine.” The smug look disappeared from Balthazar’s face in a manner that was both disconcerting and more than a little worrying. “I don’t like you.”

“Okay. That’s, uh… not exactly news, but thanks for the update. We done now?”

Balthazar glared at him in a way that was disturbingly reminiscent of Castiel in his pissiest moments, moving closer to the bed in two quick strides.

“You think you know my brother; you don’t,” he snapped, and there was something serious in his tone that Dean hadn’t heard before. “I’ve been fighting at his side since before the concept of humanity had even begun brewing in our Father’s head, and believe me when I say that that kind of bond runs deep. If you need a point of reference, think of the way you feel about Sam -- then imagine if you’d had an eternity to feel it, and you _might_ get somewhere close. Now pay attention, because here comes the important part.”

At this point, Balthazar took a deep breath that Dean was fairly sure was for display purposes only, as though he was bracing himself to say something particularly distasteful. It didn’t leave Dean feeling overly optimistic.

“I don’t like you. But since you’re apparently so slow on the uptake that you make _him_ look sharp --” on the ‘him’, he tilted his chin towards Castiel, still comatose next to Dean. “-- I’m going to give you a few pointers in this specific area. To clarify: my brother is totally gone on you. Frankly, it’s embarrassing. In fact, he adores you to such a ridiculous degree that I can’t help thinking whatever Zachariah did to him back in the day must have knocked something loose in his brain.”

“The hell have you been smoking?” Dean scoffed; a knee-jerk reaction, but as far as protests went it was weak, and he knew it. He wasn’t blind, and no matter what Sam might say he wasn’t so emotionally stunted that he didn’t notice. The way Castiel would look at him sometimes, as though Dean was the only thing that mattered -- hell, as though Dean was the only thing that _existed_. The tension that always lay suffocating between them whenever they were in the same room together, like two magnets repelling and attracting at the same time, always just one broken thread away from either kissing or killing one another.

Yeah, Dean was aware. And he had wondered, occasionally, how Castiel would respond if Dean were to wrap a hand around that tie and use it to reel him in, what the angel would do if Dean were to put his tongue to that hollow at the base of his throat. He always sort of got the impression that Cas would be cool with it, even after the brothel incident. He thought that maybe if he’d offered to take care of Castiel’s virginity himself that night, rather than trying to pawn him off on some random unsuspecting hooker, things could have gone very differently indeed. But it had always seemed like something impossible, with all the chaos and violence that was constantly rumbling on around the both of them. Maybe that was just more deflection, denial; Dean didn’t know. All he knew was that, after all this time, he was so damn _tired_ of putting obstacles in the way of getting what he wanted.

“You will _never_ be able to understand the enormity of what Castiel has given up for you,” Balthazar was saying now, “but know this: if you ever screw him over, or let him down in any way, it will give me great pleasure to throw you back into the darkest corner of the Pit. Are we clear on that, or shall I draw you up some illustrations to help it sink in?”

Despite the snark, Dean had no doubt that the angel was being one hundred percent serious; the tone of his voice and the expression on his face spoke volumes. Dean nodded minutely, swallowing down the automatic _panic_ response that still came even now whenever he thought of Hell.

“I hear you,” he affirmed. “No need to get out the Crayola.”

As if someone had flipped a switch, the trademark, devil-may-care look of self-satisfied superiority settled back over Balthazar’s features. “Right well, that’s settled, then. I’d best be off: with Raphael and Castiel both effectively out of the picture, Heaven’s going to be in complete meltdown. Again.”

Funny -- Dean hadn’t even considered how Cas being stuck on Earth would affect things on the celestial plane, post-war. He sincerely hoped that Castiel hadn’t _actually_ left Balthazar in charge. He knew they were friends, but that could only be a disaster on roughly the same scale as having Charlie Sheen in the White House.

Balthazar’s gaze shifted to the still-motionless body next to Dean’s, and the look on his face softened somewhat, growing almost fond.

“Give Cas my best, won’t you?” And then he was gone before Dean even had a chance to reply, vanishing with another rustle of feathers.

The room suddenly seemed oppressively silent, save for the rhythmic sound of Castiel’s breathing, and Dean took a moment to consider everything Balthazar had said. If Castiel really did think about him… _that_ way, would that be something Dean wanted? With Cas? After all, it was becoming painfully obvious that Cas himself was never going to do anything about it, so maybe it was time for Dean to grow a backbone and face his feelings head-on, for once.

He remembered all too clearly how he’d felt just last night, the mass of anxiety knotting his intestines when he’d thought Castiel’s third and most likely permanent death was an absolute certainty. Somehow, impossibly, the angel had dodged yet another bullet, and maybe that was a sign -- a sign that Dean should take his chances in the here and now before they were gone for good.

He was saved from any further thought on the matter when Castiel shifted and frowned, mumbling something incoherent before opening hazy blue eyes and squinting around in vague confusion. Dean watched him closely, but when it seemed unlikely that Castiel was going to freak out upon waking up human, he figured it was probably safe to speak.

“How do you feel?”

Castiel didn’t answer for a long moment, stretching his limbs out slowly, almost experimentally, holding a hand out in front of his face and studying it intently. It was as if, Dean mused, he was attempting to catalogue each and every part of his body, assessing the situation to find the most accurate means of answering the question. It was something of a relief to see -- clearly there were some things that would never change, and Castiel’s freakish computer brain was one of them.

“Decidedly human.” Castiel didn’t exactly sound thrilled at the prospect, but he didn’t sound like he was about to go and raid the nearest liquor store either, so Dean was cautiously optimistic. His voice was rough and abused in a way that had Dean thinking back to how he had screamed as the last of his Grace left him the night before, but it still carried that quiet intensity that never failed to command attention. Dean remembered Cas-from-the-future, Jimmy Novak, that Misha guy from the bizarro alternate universe Balthazar had dropped them into -- all of them had spoken in higher-pitched tones, and Dean found himself wondering how long it would be before that coil of power faded from this Castiel’s voice, too.

“I hope you won’t think less of me,” Castiel said quietly. Dean blinked in surprise because, _seriously?_

“For being human? I think that’d be a little bit hypocritical of me.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Castiel sighed. He fixed his eyes on the ceiling, and the avoidance was unusual enough that it set Dean on edge. “The things I’ve done in the name of this war… Dean, I just killed my brother.”

“Yeah, well, he had it coming.”

“Dean,” Castiel chastised. “Raphael wasn’t evil. He was just… misguided.”

“He wanted to end the world!”

“He wanted Paradise,” Castiel argued. “I wanted the same thing, once.”

“Yeah, _once_. And then you realized how wrong it was. You managed to think for yourself; why couldn’t he do the same thing?”

“He didn’t have you,” Castiel said simply. And… no. There was no way he was going to make Dean responsible for his entire rebellion -- _again._

“Give yourself some credit, Cas. You made those choices yourself. I just… gave you a push in the right direction.”

Dean expected more argument, so he was pleasantly surprised when he got a faint smile instead, though it was tinged with sadness.

“Perhaps,” Castiel conceded, “but it isn’t just Raphael. It’s all the angels -- my brothers, my sisters; the ones I killed and tortured, and the ones I sent onto the battlefield to die on my behalf. I remember their names, all of them. And now I have to live with that.”

Dean found himself wishing that Castiel would stop talking. Given all the unsavory things he’d done himself, he doubted there was anything Cas could say that would make Dean think less of him; but all the same, there were things he really didn’t need to know. He propped himself up on one elbow, leaned over Castiel until he was forced to meet Dean’s gaze. He had done a similar thing in the Green Room on the eve of Armageddon, so long ago now. Now, like then, Castiel was powerless to resist him for long.

“You’re gonna drive yourself crazy playing these games. Believe me, I’ve been there. I know I’ve been pretty hard on you lately -- and don’t get me wrong, you’ve been a real dick at times -- but you’re not a bad person, Cas. You’re a good person who’s had to do some bad things because of a crappy situation; I get that better than anybody. I mean, there are things I did in Hell that -- even now, I struggle with it. Gotta keep my game face on for Sam, ‘cause that wall of his isn’t gonna last very long if he sees me freaking out all the time, but… The point is, no-one’s gonna judge you for doing what you had to do, least of all me. And I don’t know what you’re planning on doing now that you’re here for good, but… I’d sure appreciate it if you stuck around.”

Castiel held him under that intense scrutiny for a while, as though he was trying to see what the catch was; then he sighed, turning his head away.

“I don’t need your pity, Dean.”

“Fuck pity,” Dean snarled, suddenly angry. “This isn’t about _pity_ , Cas; I _want_ you around. Like I said, you’re a dick, and I don’t think I have to tell you that you drive me up the fucking wall half the time, but I’m well aware that I can be just as bad. You and me, we butt heads more than I’ve ever butted heads with anyone who isn’t Sam -- but the truth is, I think that’s why we work together so well. We don’t take each other’s shit, you know? We call each other out when we’re acting like asshats.”

Castiel continued to look at him disbelievingly, but Dean thought that maybe there was a tiny flicker of hope in there, somewhere. “So all is forgiven, then? Just like that? Dean, I _used_ you.”

“Yeah, and that was one hell of a douche move, don’t get me wrong, but I think you’ve more than made up for it since then. You just _saved_ my ass, if I remember rightly. Sam’s too, God. Thank you for that.”

“If it wasn’t for me, you would never have been endangered in the first place. I thought I was… protecting you, by keeping my distance, but obviously it wasn’t enough.” Castiel’s face twisted into something bitter and painful. “Raphael knew you were my weakness. How could he not?”

“Cas, for fuck’s sake,” Dean grated, cursing stubborn angels everywhere. Castiel stared at him, unreadable as ever -- until suddenly he wasn’t, the poker face crumpling into something more human as he closed his eyes in such an obvious gesture of surrender Dean almost expected him to start waving a white flag.

“I don’t know if I can be what you need me to be,” he said tightly. “I’m not the same as I was before.”

Dean snorted his exasperation. “Yeah, so you lost your wings. So what?”

Castiel’s eyes widened in outraged hurt. “ _Dean_ \--”

“Just -- shut the fuck up and let me say this, would you?”

Castiel continued to glare but fell mostly silent, and Dean battled with his natural aversion to any discussion involving feelings, wishing momentarily for a strong drink. “Look, from the moment I met you, you’ve been this scary, _scary_ son of a bitch. I mean -- there’s _nothing_ that slows you down, not even for a second. I used to think it was ‘cause you were an angel, but then I actually met the rest of the family. And I gotta tell you, Cas, your brothers? Cowards and douchebags, every last one of ‘em. So you being the way you are has nothing to with whether you’re an angel or a human or something in between; it’s because you’re _you_. And that’s never gonna change. You’re always gonna be this pissy little bastard who kicks my ass six ways to Sunday and then risks everything to pull it out of the line of fire because, for some reason, you’ve decided I’m worth saving.”

Dean probably could have continued rambling on in this slightly embarrassing manner for a while longer, but he was effectively shut up by Castiel leaning up and pressing his lips to Dean’s own. It was just a chaste thing, barely lasting five seconds, but with it the universe seemed to finally make sense, stars and galaxies swinging into alignment and something Dean hadn’t even noticed he was missing finally falling into place.

“Well, son of a bitch. I guess Balthazar was telling the truth after all,” Dean muttered as they broke apart. Castiel blinked up at him owlishly.

“Balthazar was here?”

“Yeah, just before you woke up. He went to go take care of things upstairs, though. Uh, speaking of which -- that guy isn’t really in charge of Heaven now, is he?”

“There are… others. I left instructions, should I fall in battle. Though this wasn’t quite what I had in mind.” Talking about it, Castiel seemed to deflate again, and Dean felt like an ass for bringing it up in the first place. “What did Balthazar say?”

“Oh, just that you have the hots for me.”

Castiel snorted, the sound torn between amusement and exasperation. “Must you cheapen everything?”

“Dude, have you _met_ me?” Dean scoffed, but he sobered up quickly. “Is it true?”

Castiel gave him the _why are you such a freaking dumbass_ look that Dean was absolutely convinced he’d picked up from Sam. Dean found himself flushing under the weight of it.

“You know I don’t deserve it.”

“You deserve everything,” Castiel murmured, suddenly gentle. Coming from anyone else, it would have fallen flat, an empty Hallmark sentiment, but Cas brought an awkward sincerity to every word that passed his lips. Dean had never been able to wrap his head around the way he could flip so easily from the ruthless, acerbic angel-of-the-lord that was _Castiel_ to this warm, soft thing that looked at him with such naked affection. He had no idea how the hell he was supposed to reply to something like that anyway, so he did the next best thing he could think of and kissed Cas again.

A proper kiss this time, slow and deep and thorough, and Castiel’s mouth yielded beneath Dean’s own. Castiel’s lips were dry, but they were soft and full and moved obligingly against Dean’s, pliant and willing to be led. For all of his usual pushy impatience, Castiel now seemed perfectly happy to let Dean direct, one hand coming up to cup the side of his face while the other curled tentatively over his shoulder, making soft, eager noises against him. They were barely even getting started, but still Dean felt the first shimmering heat of arousal beginning to build low down in his belly.

He pulled away when oxygen started to become a concern, gazed down at Castiel; all lust-darkened eyes, mouth red and damp with saliva. _I did that_ , Dean thought, and felt an odd surge of pride.

“What the hell are we doing, huh?” He asked, because he had to be sure.

“I believe we’re kissing,” Castiel replied, as though that was the most normal thing ever. The thing was, it kind of felt that way.

Dean rested their foreheads together, took a moment to just _breathe_ before moving in again. He captured Castiel’s lower lip between both of his own, sucking gently, worrying at the slick swell of flesh with his teeth. Castiel opened up to let him in when Dean licked insistently at the seam of his lips; the wet glide of tongues that followed was enough to pull a quiet moan from Dean’s throat, and an answering one from Castiel’s. Dean tried to kiss Cas the way he liked it himself, showing him how it felt when it was good, demonstrating with actions rather than words that there was more to humanity than pain and death and hopelessness. If the way Castiel sighed and relaxed into him was indication enough, the message was getting through loud and clear.

Dean moved away again when he felt his muscles beginning to cramp, ignoring Cas’ whine of protest to mouth at the underside of his jaw; biting down at first with a gentle pressure, and then harder when it made Castiel shiver and flex his fingers against Dean’s biceps. The knowledge that he was marking Castiel, branding him in the same way that Dean carried the handprint on his shoulder, gave him a weird thrill right through to his core.

Castiel let his head fall back onto the pillow, and Dean took that as invitation to draw a path in saliva down the pale column of his throat, taste the slight concavity just above his collarbone, getting the neckline of his shirt -- _Dean’s_ shirt -- damp with spit. Sweat had gathered in the hollow, and beneath that Castiel’s skin tasted of salt and something clean, like soap or laundry detergent; utterly human.

Castiel’s hands grew bolder, gripping Dean’s waist before pushing under his t-shirt, the material gathering at his wrists as he mapped the expanse of Dean’s back, testing the length of his spine and the span of his scapulae. Then his hands swept around to the front, and Dean muffled a groan in the meeting place of Castiel’s neck and shoulder as cool, strong fingers brushed his nipples, playing over his abdominal muscles with light, inquisitive touches before moving still further south, dipping just beneath the waistband of Dean’s shorts.

Dean responded by sucking on Castiel’s pulse point in what could have been either punishment or reward, feeling the hot rush of blood just beneath the surface, listening to the hushed, exultant murmur that resulted. He found that he just _had_ to taste that mouth again, and followed the sound back to its source, kissing Castiel deep enough to lick his back teeth -- and Castiel responded in kind, coiling his tongue around Dean’s like he’d missed having it there, fingertips digging firmly into taut muscle.

Some part of Dean wondered if they weren’t moving too fast, if this wasn’t all too much too soon. But fuck it, he and Cas had been dancing around each other for years now; if they slowed things down any further, they’d probably start moving backwards. And this felt good, right, _inevitable_ in a way that all those angels and demons with their prophecies and holy scriptures could never have conceived.

Dean settled his weight more fully on top of Castiel, one hand molding to the subtle curve of his hip while the other carded through perpetually unruly hair. He parted Castiel’s legs with one of his own, the sensation of their bare thighs sliding together sending his arousal soaring ever higher. And he wasn’t the only one, he realized when Castiel shifted _just so_ beneath him; Cas was fully hard already, the evidence pressing insistently against Dean’s stomach. Dean moved the hand he had at Castiel’s hip to palm him through his boxers, and Castiel broke the kiss with a choked noise that stuck somewhere in his throat, turning his head away even as he arched unconsciously into the touch.

“Dean,” he gasped helplessly, and he sounded a little lost, overwhelmed.

“I know,” Dean murmured, mostly because he felt much the same way. “S’okay, I’ve got you.”

He undressed Castiel slowly, worshipping every inch of newly-mortal flesh until Cas was practically sobbing with frustration; then Dean guided him all the way up to the edge, and over the other side. Castiel came apart with a sharp cry and Dean’s name on his lips, a brand-new human being experiencing _sensation_ for the first time, and Dean held him through the aftershocks.

“You good?” He asked once Castiel seemed ready to focus again, trying valiantly to ignore the fact that he was practically _aching_ with need by now.

“Better than good,” Castiel affirmed, still looking slightly stunned. “Dean, I had _no idea_.”

“Yeah, well, there’s plenty more where that came from,” Dean promised with a smirk, moving back a little way. He intended to take care of himself, but Castiel surprised him again by getting there first. He was undeniably clumsy, but his eagerness to please more than made up for it, and Dean led him through this, too. And for all his experience, Dean didn’t manage to last a whole lot longer than Castiel had.

Afterwards, they lay twined in a sweaty heap, an intricate Celtic knot of limbs that made it almost impossible to tell which appendage belonged to whom. It was strange, because Dean wasn’t usually one for intimacy after sex -- even with Lisa, he’d shied away from it more often than not -- but he found that he couldn’t stop _touching_ Castiel, random caresses to his back and shoulders and ribs, brush of lips over his nose and temple and cheekbone. Castiel seemed to be suffering the same affliction, if the way his hands moved restlessly over Dean’s skin was any indication; but after a while his movements slowed and his breathing evened out as he fell back into sleep, still clearly exhausted. And even though it was gone eight o’clock and he could hear Sam and Bobby moving around downstairs, Dean let him rest.

The tightness in his chest was an entirely new feeling, and Dean realized that this right here was completely unlike that perfect existence he had wanted so desperately with Lisa, forever just out of his reach. This was something _real_ , something he could actually _have_ \-- and God help him, Dean was going to make damn sure he held onto it.

+

The road unspooled in a stretch of black pitch beneath the Impala’s wheels, infinite and reaching, another mile seemingly added on for every one swallowed by her engine. There was a time, when he was still full of Grace, that Castiel would not have had the patience for this mode of travel. It still felt restricted, _confining_ , as he had once told Lucifer, but for now he was content enough to curl in the backseat, listen to the low hum of the radio and the gentle back-and-forth bickering between Sam and Dean as the scenery flew past his window.

Castiel had partaken of his first pancakes that morning, when Dean had finally managed to coax him from the warmth and softness of the blankets, and he could still taste the sugar crystals clinging between his teeth, gritty and sweet. He and Dean had sat much closer together than they usually would at the table, close enough that Castiel had been able to feel the heat radiating from Dean’s body even through both sets of clothing.

Though there had been no outward acknowledgement of what had happened between them in front of the others, Sam had smiled at them in a way that Castiel believed could be categorized as ‘knowing’, while Bobby had merely rolled his eyes and proclaimed them ‘ _idjits_ ’. Both reactions had caused Dean to flush pink in a thoroughly interesting manner; Castiel had found himself quite unable to resist staring, and when Dean noticed this he’d smirked and squeezed Castiel’s knee under the table.

Some time after breakfast, Bobby had talked to another hunter in hushed tones over the phone, brows furrowing under his cap as he’d pored over his beaten old roadmap, marking off locations with thick black crosses.

“Got some major monster activity goin’ on up Arkansas way,” he’d informed them once he’d put the phone down. “Werewolves changing in the middle of the day, random ghoul attacks… coupla things Willie’d never even seen before.”

Castiel remembered the look Dean and Sam had exchanged at this; grim and meaningful, filled with so many complex layers he scarcely knew where to begin deciphering them.

“Eve again?” Sam had asked, sharp as ever.

“I’d bet my cap on it,” Bobby grunted, which for some reason had made Dean snort with nervous laughter.

They’d headed out not long after that, Bobby warning them to “watch your backs, we’ve lost too many good people lately, you hear?” He’d exchanged gruff hugs with both Sam and Dean before they left, and even clapped Castiel briefly on the shoulder, the closest the old man had ever come to demonstrating something other than irritated impatience towards him.

Castiel had hesitated briefly when they’d reached the car, unsure of the extent to which he was welcome, but Dean had merely waved him into the backseat as though there was no other place for him. If Sam had any issues with the arrangement, he hadn’t commented, and the brief, tense smile he’d given Castiel when he folded his long limbs into the passenger seat was genuine enough.

Even with the war over, the world was still so very far from perfect. They still had Eve to contend with, and battling the mother of all monsters would surely be as taxing as their fight against the Devil himself. Even with Raphael dead, it was unlikely that Heaven’s politics would be stable for a long while, and a large part of Castiel still resented that he couldn’t oversee proceedings, keep his brothers and sisters on the correct path. Hell, too, was likely to be in chaos with Lucifer caged and Crowley and Meg both dead.

Even if they made it through all of that unscathed, there were other things to consider. Like the wall in Sam’s head, a precarious dam struggling to hold back the memories that would ruin him. Castiel doubted it would last forever, and when the tide burst through, Sam would likely never recover from it. By extension, neither would Dean.

And then there was the treacherous minefield of humanity that Castiel would once again find himself having to navigate. Losing his Grace all over again was something he had failed to anticipate after his second resurrection, and the loss of it was very much a physical ache -- a sharp, numbing pain somewhere behind his sternum that not even the kindest words or most intimate of touches could soothe. He wondered if it was something that would fade over time until he could scarcely feel it, or if would remain for all of his days -- limited though they were, now -- a constant reminder of what he had once been.

He did not mention this to Dean. The man had enough to contend with without feeling guilty on his behalf, and Castiel would not be a burden.

Besides which, the steel and glass of the Impala provided a small measure of insulation against the outside world, and though Castiel knew the feelings of peace and safety were an illusion that would not last long, it was all too easy in this moment to enjoy the light conversation and easy company. Dean and Sam were still arguing in the front seat, but their words lacked heat, and there was an undercurrent of fondness that had been missing before the return of Sam’s soul.

“…Cas agrees with me, anyway,” Dean was saying, a hint of smugness in his tone. “Right, Cas?”

Castiel had no idea what it was he was supposed to be agreeing to, but it hardly mattered. And when he dutifully replied _always, Dean_ , he made sure his own voice was heavily laden with sarcasm. Sam snickered in a wholly obnoxious manner, and Dean removed one hand from the steering wheel to whack him upside the head.

“Jesus Christ, as if dealing with one prissy little tightwad wasn’t bad enough,” Dean muttered, but when he met Castiel’s gaze in the rearview mirror his eyes were warm, as warm as the sun that filtered golden through the window.

There was no telling what fresh pains the future would bring, but in this moment they were all alive, and Sam was laughing openly now as Dean’s lips curved into a reluctant smile.

And slowly -- very slowly -- Castiel smiled back.

 _[end.]_

  
 **Notes:** According to the [List of Enochian Angels](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Enochian_angels), Baradiel is the angel of hail.

I don’t claim to be an expert on Hindu mythology, but I did my research: the Dakshineswar Kali Temple is a real Hindu temple near Kolkata in India. _Bhavatarini_ is an aspect of Kali with the literal meaning ‘redeemer of the universe’.


End file.
